In perhaps the biggest example of the AI boom, a struggling US shoe company saw its stock surge nearly 600 per cent in a single day after a bizarre pivot to AI data centres. Allbirds, an apparel and footwear brand, said it would execute a $50 million convertible financing agreement with an institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to fund the acquisition of high-end graphics processing units (GPUs). The company said its new long-term vision was to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider. 

“NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the…