Biggest Bitcoin data centre located in Georgia
Tbilisi opens Free Industrial Zone
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Georgia is unveiling a Free Industrial Zone in capital Tbilisi, and the opening of the biggest Bitcoin data centre by virtual currency mining giant BitFury.
The Free Industrial Zone in Tbilisi aimed to attract international or local companies that produced products for export, head of the Free Industrial Zone Giorgi Tabidze told Agenda.ge.
The main benefit the Free Industrial Zone, which is located in Tbilisi, 17km from the city centre and close to the main airport, offered many benefits including preferential taxes for specific companies. For example, companies that produced products for export in the Zone will be exempt from taxes, except lease tax and income tax [on the salaries of employed people].
This could be Georgian companies who export their products abroad or foreign companies which import raw materials in Georgia, with preferential tax conditions, produce in our country and export from Georgia to foreign markets,” said Tabidze.
Georgia expected to receive $100 million USD investments following the announcement of the Free Industrial Zone in Tbilisi.
Meanwhile the biggest Bitcoin data centre, located in Gldani, was opened by BitFury Group - a Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company. The firm invested $30 million USD to create the data centre in Tbilisi, Georgia.
BitFury opened second data centre in Tbilisi's Gldani district. Photo by Agenda.ge
Why Georgia was chosen for this high technology project?
First of all, very friendly business and investment climate, no corruption, good taxation regime, competitive energy cost and competitive labour cost,” said BitFury founder and CEO Valery Vavilov to Agenda.ge today.
This was BitFury’s second project in Georgia. The company produced Bitcoins in Georgia's Eastern city Gori; Bitcoins are a virtual currency that pays for goods or services on an online network. They are created online and stored electronically.
BitFury privatised 18 hectares of land in Tbilisi’s Gldani district to develop the Georgian Technology Park project. There BitFury built a mega-data centre to process transactions using its latest generation 28 nm and the upcoming 16 nm ASIC chips.
After rigorous testing, the latest technologies and chips demonstrated "outstanding computing capabilities” and met all speed targets, said BitFury founder and CEO Valery Vavilov.
We are very excited to launch mass production of our super 16nm ASIC Chip. The final results of our hard work have fully met our expectations. We understand that it will be nearly impossible for any older technology to compete with the performance of our new 16nm technology,” he said.
The company has developed its third generation immersion cooling system to create energy-saving data centre cooling systems for high performance computing applications. To cool the systems the company needed to use a large amount of electricity, and as the price of electricity was cheap in Georgia, BitFury selected this country as a preferential place to operate.
Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili noted today at the opening ceremony, that Georgia’s improved investment climate encouraged BifFury to expand its activities here.
BitFury’s activities in the Georgian market prove that the investment environment is improving in our country. Our Government has started to encourage investors. Creating the Free Industrial Zone in Tbilisi will be an additional stimulus for other companies to implement investments here,” said Garibashvili.
BitFurry opened the first data centre in July 2014 in Georgia’s eastern city Gori. The 20 MW data centre served bitcoin transactions with about 6,000 servers every day.
It was confidential to announce the number of bitcoins the centre issued each day however BitFurry’s profit sometimes reached $300,000 USD per day, revealed Blockchain statistics.
BitFury Group, a Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, is building its second data centre in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi and the first Technology Park, in which the company will invest $100 million USD.
Georgia is teaming up with international experts to become one of the first countries in the world to develop and use a system for registering land titles using blockchain.
Georgia has become one of the first countries in the world to use the Bitcoin currency and platform to complete property-related government transactions.
The upcoming International Blockchain Summit will show a presentation about Georgia and how the country successfully implemented the blockchain technology.
Harvard Business School is going to use Georgia’s experience of implanting blockchain technologies for its own purposes. The representatives of Harvard Business School are already working on a document about on the implementation of blockchain technologies based on Georgia’s example.
On an average day, crypto-drug transactions worth more than $8,000 are made in Georgia. Similarly, on an average day, illicit substances with a value of over $35,000 are placed in secret locations around the country’s major cities of Tbilisi, Batumi, and Kutaisi, reads the report 'Online markets for illicit drugs in Georgia'.
The Hualing Free Industrial Zone in the western Georgian city of Kutaisi is expanding by another 22 hectares to reach 58 hectares, the Georgian Ministry of Economy announced on Tuesday.
Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili and Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Wednesday discussed the "stable and favourable" business environment of Georgia and "significant opportunities" offered by the country to investors.
Tether, the world’s largest issuer of stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency, will help Georgia develop its blockchain infrastructure following a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday between the company and the country’s Ministry of Economy.