Dialogue with the founder of SAI: successfully landed on Nasdaq to be a Tesla in the field of clean computing power and reduce carbon emissions

It is reported that SAITECH Limited, a computing operator headquartered in Singapore and providing clean computing power, completed the merger with the SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) “TradeUP Global Corporation (TUGCU)” on April 29, 2022, and will begin on May 2. trade.

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The combined company is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “SAI,” and the combined company’s equity value is valued at $188 million.

Arthur Lee, founder, and CEO of SAI, said in an exclusive interview with Leidi.com that SAI strives to become the “Tesla” in the field of clean computing power and help reduce carbon emissions in the entire society.

Arthur Lee expressed his hope that SAI can bring disruptive changes to the industry in the future in the field of clean computing power like Tesla did in the field of automobiles and enable the underlying infrastructure of the industry to develop in a cleaner and more efficient direction.

Reduce the cost of computing power and provide comprehensive services of computing power, electricity, and heat for independent areas

For the cryptocurrency mining industry, energy anxiety will never escape the topic. Bitcoin mining consumes so much energy that it exceeds the electricity consumption of some countries, and many see this carbon-intensive method of mining as a threat to the environment.

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The innovation of SAI lies in sustainable mining, which horizontally integrates the three industries of computing power, heat power and electricity, which can significantly reduce energy costs and improve energy efficiency. In the prospectus, SAI.TECH disclosed that the heating efficiency of its solution is as high as 90%, and it has successfully operated a large-scale heating pilot, which can provide stable heating for large-scale heating projects such as agricultural greenhouses, greenhouse planting, and residences.

Through exclusive liquid cooling and waste heat recovery technology, SAI recycles the waste heat of chips, reduces the computing power operating cost of high-performance computing, and provides clean thermal services for potential customers, helping the computing power industry to transform to clean energy.

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The development of SAI in the field of clean computing power is divided into three stages. In the 1.0 stage in 2019, SAI launched the core technology solution – SAIHUB, which proved the feasibility of the technical solution by providing computing power and heating services to single-family households; in the 2.0 stage in 2021, SAIHUB successfully realized the scale of the entire community or multiple the overall heating of the greenhouse, the application scenarios are expanded from residential to more complex environments such as business and agriculture;

From 2022, SAIHUB will officially enter the 3.0 stage. By integrating the four-core links of heat, electricity, algorithms and chips, it will comprehensively reduce the cost of computing power to reach a singularity, provide comprehensive services of computing power, electricity and heat for independent areas, and promote the computing power industry. Clean and sustainable.

Of course, compared with Tesla, SAI is currently small in scale, and there is still a long way to go to truly achieve this goal.

Catching up on the last train before the SPAC merger listing window narrows

From 2021, cryptocurrency companies going public via SPAC mergers have become a craze. Over the past year or so, nearly 10 cryptocurrency companies have gone public through SPACs, such as: Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, Bakkt Holdings, etc. Other mining companies such as BitFuFu and Bitdeer also plan to list US stocks through SPACs in 2022.

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After the heyday of 2019 and 2020, the SPAC market has calmed down. The time when SAI got the U.S. stock market into force was just in time for the last train before the SPAC merger listing window narrowed.

According to Arthur Lee, the entire merger and listing process has experienced many twists and turns. The entire team seems to have participated in a series of challenges together, and everyone’s psychological endurance and other aspects are on the verge of extreme pressure. Fortunately, SAI officially got the approval before the new SPAC regulations were introduced, and it is determined to be listed on May 2, 2022 (Eastern Time).

The following is the transcript of the conversation:

Question: From 2020 to 2021, there are many companies going public through the SPAC model. How did you choose TradeUP?

Arthur Lee: Most people may think that SPACs are simpler than traditional IPOs, but we encountered many challenges during the whole process due to the influence of many external environments.

The SPAC boom in the US stock market started from 2019 to 2020 and reached its peak in January-February 2021. For several consecutive months, the amount of funds raised by SPACs has exceeded that of IPOs in the market, and many companies have also passed The SPAC model is listed.

For the industry in which SAI.TECH operates, internationalization is the general trend. In this context, we saw the popularity of the market and judged that the time for listing was ripe, so we began to actively look for partners and seek opportunities for listing through SPACs. TradeUP was the most recognized SPAC partner in the cryptocurrency, computing power industry, and SAI companies and teams at that time. The powerful consensus mechanism allowed us to quickly join hands.

Catching up on the last train before the SPAC merger listing window narrows

Question: You are just in time for the last train before the implementation of the new SPAC regulations. Can you talk about some of the stories behind your listing?

Arthur Lee: From March to April 2021, the United States issued new SPAC regulations, and TradeUP is the first SPAC to pass an IPO after the new regulations.

The merger of SAI.TECH and TradeUP has experienced a lot of turmoil in the middle, including the listing of Didi, the suspension of the listing of Chinese stocks in the United States, etc.; the policy of withdrawing Bitcoin computing power introduced in May 2021 also has a great impact on the industry. big impact.

Fortunately, SAI.TECH has carried out a series of adjustment measures in a timely manner, including operating overseas, focusing on R&D and supply chain support in China, and moving the headquarters to Singapore. In addition, we also released the VIE structure in time, and planned in advance for PCAOB audit and other aspects to ensure that the draft audit was submitted, which saved a lot of time for submitting listing materials later.

In the late stage of preparation for listing, the external environment continued to undergo drastic changes, including rising global energy prices, aggravation of the epidemic, interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and even geopolitical changes such as war. Fortunately, we have overcome various challenges time and time again.

Now when we estimated that we were about to receive the SEC listing effective notice, we learned through Tiger International that on March 30th the SEC may issue a new draft for the discussion of the new SPAC regulations. This caused us great concern at the time. If the merger transaction between SAI.TECH and TradeUP cannot take effect before the new SPAC regulations, it means that the two parties will spend more time in the process of listing in the future, and the time is uncertain. It will pose a challenge to the company and affect the business, because the normal development of SAI.TECH’s business needs to be supported by stable cash flow. Once it cannot be listed as scheduled, many plans will be disrupted.

Therefore, during the week of March 30, our entire team basically stayed up late for 7 or 8 consecutive days, working 24 hours a day to prepare to find a way to submit materials or respond to the SEC response. In just a dozen days, we achieved an output efficiency equivalent to two rounds of SEC responses. Finally, before the new SPAC regulations, we got the approval for the merger to take effect. Before that, both the lawyers and all the people involved thought it was an impossible task.

However, because our entire team, lawyers on both sides, and participants from all walks of life have exerted their maximum potential, almost all the problems encountered can be resolved within 24 hours despite the time difference, and only miraculously obtained the effective approval, The final delivery is scheduled for April 29, and the code will be officially changed to “SAI” on May 2.

Therefore, the whole process is like a series of breakthroughs, and everyone’s psychological capacity and pressure are very high in all aspects.

Thanks to Tiger International and Zhencheng Investment for their help

Question: The sponsor of this time TradeUP is Tiger International and Zhencheng Investment. How do you see each other’s cooperation?

Arthur Lee: Zhencheng Investment and Tiger Securities have been very helpful in this merger.

Now, many SPAC merger projects are facing cancellation, and even many to half are abandoned due to technical details such as valuation. Because the uncertainty is too high, participants generally have a mentality of “rather not do it than take such a big risk”. Even if many of the combined projects are completed, the redemption rate is as high as 80% or even 90%. SAI.TECH and TradeUp not only successfully completed the merger, but also the redemption rate is less than 50%, which fully proves the market and investors’ recognition of SAI.TECH in such a market environment.

In this process, whether it is Zhencheng or Tiger, they have helped the legal team, auditing, all submission processes, and even some compliance links, and have always trusted and supported us. Our entire team really thank you very much.

Idle heat can be used in industry and agriculture

Question: What SAI.TECH mainly does is to clean the computing power and re-apply the heat generated by the computing power to multiple life scenarios. Can you popularize the application in this area?

Arthur Lee: SAI.TECH is positioned as a company that provides clean computing power services. We believe that computing power is the core demand for the development of the entire world in the future.

Computing power is a more efficient way to use energy. We believe that in the future, more things will be replaced by digitization, such as the transmission of information, the transmission of value, etc., and the digitization process is almost entirely dependent on computing power. The computing power industry will grow rapidly in the future, and we also hope to provide sustainable energy or sustainable clean computing power in this industry, so that the industry can develop cleaner, faster, and more in line with the concept of ESG.

At present, there are four core costs in the computing power industry. The first is electricity, which consumes a lot of electricity to run the data center. The second is heat. The operation of the equipment will generate a lot of heat, and the problem of heat dissipation should be considered. The third is the algorithm. The algorithm faces continuous optimization iterations to make it more efficient. The fourth and most core is the chip. Among them, electricity and chips are the core costs, accounting for 70%-80% of the cost of the entire industry.

In such a state, we are constantly thinking about how to further reduce the cost of computing power, so that everyone can use cleaner, sustainable and more cost-effective computing services. The conclusion is that we need to reduce costs comprehensively through these four dimensions.

The cost of electricity is hard to shake because the cost of generating electricity is fixed, so it’s hard for you to lower it further. In the heat area, we feel that there is a very large space. In the past, everyone’s idea in the entire market was to dissipate heat and dissipate this excess heat, but we chose to subvert the routine. Instead of consuming excess electricity to dissipate the heat, why not collect it and use it? In other places, there are still many people who need a lot of heat, such as industrial, agricultural greenhouses, and even domestic heating and hot water. Heat needs need to be met by consuming additional energy.

If we collect the heat generated by the computing power industry and give it to other industries with heat needs, it will essentially reduce the total energy consumption of the entire society. What used to consume two kWh of electricity is now solved by one kWh of electricity. solved.

SAI.TECH, through its own core technology solution SAIHUB, is a method like a computing energy center. It collects the heat generated by the server and the chip during the computing process and provides it to the demander of heat, such as agricultural greenhouses, such as living Heating, including hot water, and even some areas of industry, to achieve a closed loop of reuse.

In this way, idle energy, which is waste heat, is efficiently reused, which not only reduces energy costs, but also reduces total carbon emissions, and reduces the total energy consumption of the entire society.

To become Tesla in the field of clean computing power

Question: The cryptocurrency industry also needs a lot of computing power provided by companies like SAI. What kind of value can you provide in the middle?

Arthur Lee: We hope that we will eventually become a comprehensive energy service provider, or a computing operator, that provides computing power based on ASIC chips or GPU chips in the entire computing power industry.

The terminal computing power of SAI.TECH is like the cloud computing power service provided by Alibaba Cloud or Amazon Cloud. We also provide cloud computing power, but our cloud computing power is other computing types, based on ASIC chips or GPU chips. high-performance computing computing services.

The traditional Bitcoin mining industry consumes a lot of energy while generating a lot of heat, and the market is also very sensitive to the price of Bitcoin and energy costs. Therefore, we take it as the target industry to carry out clean computing power services first, and it is also the industry that we give priority to providing computing power solutions.

We hope to bring cleaner, more efficient, and low-cost Bitcoin computing power services to this industry, and on this basis, expand the computing power type to other supply directions, such as AI computing power that becomes GPU chips, etc. A comprehensive computing operator of type computing power.

In essence, we believe that computing power is an energy industry, and we hope to be the provider of clean computing power in this energy industry. For example, the auto industry has fuel vehicles and electric vehicles, but there is also a unique existence like Tesla. We also hope that the computing industry in the future will have traditional computing industry, high-performance computing industry, and our unique role as SAI.

We hope to vigorously promote and develop our innovative clean high-performance computing solutions in the future. The larger our scale, the cleaner computing power, higher efficiency, and less energy consumption in this industry.

To become the most cost-effective and lowest-cost computing power in the market

Question: What will SAI.TECH use for the funds obtained during this merger?

Arthur Lee: We will spend the funds on the research and development of our core business and core technologies to continuously iterate our products.

We think we’re at a stage a bit like the eve of Tesla’s Model 3 mass production. Tesla started with the Roadster concept sports car, just like the engineering prototype we launched at the beginning of 2019, proving that I can use the heat of the server to heat. The Model S period is equivalent to our SAIHUB 2.0 stage, which is a small-scale pilot project. We have also done heating for the entire area in China before.

The stage to Model 3 is the stage of our SAIHUB 3.0, and we hope to reach the singularity of the industry. Just like the Model 3 has reached the singularity of electric vehicles, when the supply chain and battery technology have reached the singularity, the production cost is even cheaper and cleaner than that of gasoline vehicles.

The same is true for us, we hope to re-integrate chips, heat, electricity, and computing power at the stage of SAIHUB 3.0. In the SAIHUB 3.0 phase, our goal is to provide the most cost-effective and cleanest computing power on the market.

Therefore, we will use our funds to further reduce the cost of computing – power cost, cooling cost, algorithm cost, chip cost, and then come to the singularity of clean computing solutions and achieve our goals.

Question: Many of SAI.TECH’s businesses are mainly overseas. What are the business plans for this year?

Arthur Lee: All our businesses are overseas, and we moved our headquarters to Singapore last year. 2022 is a critical time point for us. On the one hand, we completed the listing and gained admission to the international market. With the implementation of core business, SAI will further integrate into the international capital market in the future. We hope to cooperate with more international investors to jointly develop global business and achieve a win-win situation.

The second is at the business level. We hope to launch pilot projects in more countries. At the same time, the application scenarios of the project will be more diversified, providing waste heat recycling projects for industrial, commercial, and even greenhouses, residential areas, etc., and providing cleaner, high-performance and more cost-effective computing services for the entire market.

In fact, Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, specifically discussed the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining at a Bitcoin forum event held on August 10, 2010. He believes that Bitcoin mining will eventually lead to the lowest energy cost. place to be carried out. The places with the lowest energy cost should be those cold areas because the heat generated by the calculation can provide heating services for the cold areas. In this case, the electricity cost can be understood as free, because the heat itself needs to consume so much electricity. So, at this time, Bitcoin can be understood as having zero cost. In this case, it is the lowest cost state.

As a clean Bitcoin company that focuses on reusing the waste heat of Bitcoin computing power, if we can achieve this goal, I think this will be a turning point for the entire industry, regardless of the development of the computing industry or the development direction of Bitcoin computing power. been redefined. The heat of computing power should be reused to make computing power cleaner and cheaper. This is what I personally expect SAI to successfully list on NASDAQ – we can promote this concept and solution faster and Promote the transformation of the computing power industry to a cleaner direction.


Post time: May-19-2022