Drawdown under innovative financing marks initial phase of QumulusAI's 2026 GPU expansion roadmap targeting more than 23,000 GPUs by year-end

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESS Newswire / February 19, 2026 / QumulusAI, a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company delivering hyper-distributed compute at hyperspeed, today announced the deployment of 1,144 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, representing their first drawdown under its previously announced $500 million non-recourse financing facility with USD.AI.

The first phase of the deployment consists of 760 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and marks QumulusAI's first large-scale implementation of its innovative capital model. The structure aligns flexible financing with next-generation GPU infrastructure to accelerate time to market for enterprise AI customers.

QumulusAI has also funded the second phase of deployment with a deposit for its next 384-GPU B300 cluster scheduled for late-March delivery, with the remaining balance expected to be funded in part through a subsequent draw under the USD.AI facility.

"This deployment demonstrates how AI infrastructure must be built in this era. It needs to be fast, modular, and capital-efficient," said Mike Maniscalco, Chief Executive Officer of QumulusAI. "By combining NVIDIA's Blackwell platform with a flexible financing structure, we are bringing meaningful compute capacity online at hyperspeed while maintaining capital discipline."

Blackwell-Powered Infrastructure at Scale

The deployment includes Blackwell-based server platforms powered by NVIDIA's next-generation architecture, designed to support increasingly complex AI training and inference workloads. Blackwell delivers significant improvements in performance, memory bandwidth, and energy efficiency. These gains enable customers to train larger models, accelerate inference pipelines, and improve cost-per-token economics.

By integrating Blackwell infrastructure into its hyper-distributed cloud model, QumulusAI provides customers access to enterprise-grade GPU access without hyperscaler bottlenecks, long procurement cycles, or rigid multi-year commitments.

Innovative Financing as a Growth Engine

The deployment represents the first drawdown under QumulusAI's $500 million USD.AI financing facility, announced earlier this year. The structure enables phased infrastructure activation aligned with customer demand. Traditional data center financing models are built around long construction timelines and large upfront capital commitments. QumulusAI's model allows capacity to scale incrementally.

This approach allows QumulusAI to:

• Deploy GPU capacity in phases

• Accelerate time to revenue

• Maintain balance sheet flexibility

• Scale infrastructure alongside customer demand

By aligning capital velocity with deployment velocity, QumulusAI is redefining how AI infrastructure reaches the market.

The original announcement of the $500 million financing facility can be found here:
https://www.qumulusai.com/articles/qumulusai-secures-500m-non-recourse-financing-facility-through-usdai-to-accelerate-ai-infrastructure-growth

Part of a Broader 2026 GPU Expansion Roadmap

The 760 Blackwell GPUs represent the initial phase of QumulusAI's broader 2026 capacity expansion plan. The company expects total GPU inventory to exceed 20,000 GPUs by the end of 2026, driven by phased deployments across its distributed network of data center partners throughout the year.

Planned 2026 deployments include scaled rollouts of B300 and RTX Pro 6000 platforms, with additional Blackwell-based capacity expected in successive phases.

As AI demand accelerates globally, QumulusAI's distributed model positions the company to respond rapidly to training and inference workloads across industries including healthcare, financial services, media, automotive, and advanced research.

Building the Hyper-Distributed AI Cloud

QumulusAI's infrastructure strategy is built on five core pillars: Flexibility, Access, Cost, Trust, and Speed. These principles enable customers to scale AI workloads with predictable performance and enterprise-grade reliability.

By combining next-generation GPU platforms, innovative capital structures, modular data center partnerships, and distributed geographic deployment, QumulusAI continues executing on its mission of Breaking AI's Biggest Barriers.

Additional deployments under the USD.AI facility are expected throughout 2026 as the company advances its roadmap.

About QumulusAI
QumulusAI is building the next-generation AI cloud through a hyper-distributed, modular infrastructure model that integrates power, data centers, and GPU-as-a-Service. The company delivers enterprise-grade compute at hyperspeed, enabling AI developers, enterprises, and research institutions to scale training and inference workloads without traditional infrastructure constraints.
For more information, visit https://www.qumulusai.com

About Permian Labs
Permian Labs is the developer of USD.AI, building the infrastructure that connects institutional capital with real-world AI compute. Permian Labs designs the legal, financial, and technical systems that transform GPUs into collateral and make them accessible through blockchain- based credit markets. By bridging traditional asset finance with DeFi innovation, Permian Labs enables AI operators to scale efficiently while creating new opportunities for investors to access yield from real-world infrastructure.
Visit: https://www.gpuloans.com

About USD.AI
USD.AI is the world's first blockchain-native credit market for GPU-backed infrastructure. The protocol turns AI hardware into tokenized collateral, unlocking financing markets with deep liquidity, attractive cost of capital and instant settlement for emerging AI operators who require capital to scale. Through its dual-token model, USDai (a stablecoin with deep liquidity) and sUSDai (its yield-bearing counterpart), USD.AI creates new liquidity pathways for operators while offering investors scalable, real-world yields. Developed by Permian Labs, USD.AI combines DeFi principles with institutional-grade securitization standards to accelerate the financing of AI infrastructure worldwide.

For more information on QumulusAI: Press: media@qumulusai.com Investors: investors@qumulusai.com
Follow QumulusAI on social media: https://www.linkedin.com/company/qumulusai

For more information on USD.AI
Email: hello@usd.ai

This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" that are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties, and on information available to QumulusAI as of the date hereof. QumulusAI's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied herein, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business and/or the strategic partnership, which include, without limitation, the company's ability to complete future deployments and continued availability under the USD.AI facility, market volatility and/or regulatory conditions. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding QumulusAI's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future, and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will" and "would" or words of similar import. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding future operating and financial results, QumulusAI's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions, and other statements that are not historical facts. QumulusAI expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement
contained in this press release to reflect any change in QumulusAI's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based in respect of its business, the strategic partnership or otherwise.

SOURCE: QumulusAI