A public-private partnership in El Salvador will pump $1 billion into creating one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining farms, the group called Volcano Energy announced on Monday.

The project will start with an initial $250 million, backed by “key Bitcoin industry leaders” in collaboration with renewable energy developers, Volcano Energy said in a statement.

El Salvador’s state “Bitcoin Office” retweeted the news on its Twitter. The presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Volcano Energy said the funds would go toward an estimated 241 MW power generation park using solar and wind energy in the northwestern municipality of Metapan, which will eventually power the bitcoin mining farm.

Bitcoin mining uses high-power computers hooked up to a global network, sucking up massive amounts of electricity in the process. The energy-intensive practice has come under fire from environmentalists who are concerned that it would exacerbate forest loss and climate change.

The announcement comes two years after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared his intention to make bitcoin legal tender.

A Reuters report found adoption among residents has been shaky, while the International Monetary Fund has cautioned against the embrace due to legal risks, fiscal fragility and the speculative market.

Bukele and his bitcoin backers have said the currency can bring jobs, financial inclusion and foreign investment to the country, one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

The El Salvador government will have “a preferred participation equivalent to 23% of the revenues” in the project, Volcano Energy said, with private investors holding 27%.

The remaining 50% will be reinvested back into infrastructure, the statement said, without clarifying the overall ownership structure.

Tether, a startup operating a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar, participated in the initial investment, it confirmed in a separate statement, without specifying the amount contributed. It listed Josue Lopez, who was involved with a $200 million solar energy plant announced last year, as the CEO of Volcano Energy, and Max Keiser, a bitcoin influencer, as its chairman.

Chinese quant hedge fund managers are rushing to explore ChatGPT-style tools, embracing the emerging AI technology that has sparked a global frenzy since the release of the widely popular Microsoft-backed OpenAI chatbot.

Quants’ focus on advanced artificial intelligence to aid decision-making comes amid a tough investment environment, as China’s post-COVID recovery wanes and competition rises in the country’s 20 trillion yuan ($3 trillion) private fund industry.

“ChatGPT is an epoch-making application … It can draw conclusions from a complicated network of relationships with numerous dimensions in ways human brains cannot,” said Steve Chen, partner of Shanghai-based MX Capital.

“Exploring its ability is now our main focus.”

His hedge fund already uses ChatGPT to better understand a company’s fundamentals and avoid value traps, project earnings power, and identify investment opportunities and risks.

ChatGPT, trained using a huge amount of data, can write poems, compose music, draw paintings, and generate other strikingly humanlike responses based on user prompts.

A ChatGPT-like tool boosts quants’ ability to process text-related data, said Feng Ji, chairman of Baiont Capital.

“We were also inspired by ChatGPT to build large models using trading data, instead of text,” Feng said.

Feng’s hedge fund, backed by former Google China chief and AI veteran Kai-Fu Lee, has invested heavily in hardware to enhance computing power required for model-training.

High-Flyer, among China’s biggest quant funds, has hailed advanced AI as the “greatest innovation of our times”.

In April, High-Flyer announced the setup of a research unit to explore disruptive AI technologies.

MACHINE VS MAN
Last week, Beijing-based asset manager Zhishan Investment said it would deploy AI robot “Cybertron” across all products and use it to help reshape its investment methodology.

Baiont Capital’s Feng is more ambitious, seeking to let robots take full control of the investment process – from data analysis and prediction, to decision-making and execution.

Feng’s Nanjing-based company uses high-frequency trading strategies and recruits only computer scientists, not Wall Street traders.

Robots do a much better job than humans in forecasting share moves over the next hour as “machine learning is designed to make such predictions”, Feng said.

While ChatGPT-like tools have stirred excitement, the race to develop and adopt powerful AI services has also fuelled anxiety about privacy, safety and job security.

Regulators are looking for ways to tackle the impact of generative AI technology. In China, where technology giants such as Alibaba (9988.HK), Sensetime (0020.HK), and Baidu (9888.HK) have ramped up AI bets, regulators unveiled draft measures in April giving them greater oversight of the technology.

Larry Cao, senior director of research at CFA Institute, cautioned the technology could put at stake jobs of bankers and fund managers working in areas where data is easily accessible.

“If you’re an analyst just telling people the story that everybody is telling other folks, what’s your value-add? I can just ask ChatGPT, right?” said Cao, editor of a newly published handbook on how to apply AI and Big Data in investments.

“The threat is real, but it’s not tomorrow.”

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will add compatibility with search iPad as a companion device, a portal that closely monitors the messaging app reported.

In the previous feature, the Meta-owned service has allowed users to link an additional iOS device to an existing WhatsApp account. With this feature, users are able to link up to 4 devices to their accounts at a time, while maintaining the same level of privacy and security.

The future update will add compatibility with search iPad as a new linked device.

As you can see in this screenshot, search iPad is finally recognized as a linked device. This means you will be able to link WhatsApp for iPad to your existing account in the future. It’s important to note that WhatsApp for iPad is still in development and not yet available to beta testers,” reads WaBetaInfo blog.

The ability to link an iPad as a companion device on WhatsApp for Android is under development and it will be released to beta testers in a future update of the app.