One of Russia’s largest oil producers creates a Bitcoin mining farm in Siberia

Gazprom Neft, one of the largest oil producers in Russia, is getting into mining — for Bitcoin, that is. According to a report from Coindesk, the oil drilling giant has opened a crypto mining farm that runs on gas energy. The crypto farm is located in the Khanty-Mansiysk region of northwestern Siberia. It is utilizing gas from a nearby oil field as an energy source, which is turned into electricity for the mining process using its own power plant. While Gazprom Neft will not be doing the mining itself, it reportedly plans to open up its resources to miners and piloted a small-scale mining operation with the mining company Vekus this fall. Gazprom Neft aims to increase the size of the mining farm, although it has not revealed how large it plans for the farm to grow. Bitcoin mining is the process of creating new Bitcoin. Mining has to be done using specialized computers, with miners solving a computational problem in order to chain together blocks of transactions (the so-called blockchain), for which they are rewarded with fresh Bitcoin. According to a BBC report, the energy consumption associated with mining Bitcoin is equivalent to seven gigawatts of energy, approximately 0.21% of the world’s energy supply, or the equivalent of the power consumption of Switzerland. The Siberian Bitcoin farm solves two problems at once. The first is that it provides a new means of generating large amounts of almost free electricity for the energy-intensive process of mining cryptocurrency. The second problem it solves is that it helps deal with a byproduct of the oil drilling process, which can result in fines. The extraction of oil also results in the release of CO2. Instead of wasting this gas, using it to generate electricity is a valuable method of repurposing it. In one month, 49,500 cubic meters of natural gas have reportedly been used to mine 1.8 Bitcoin. At current trading prices, that is equivalent to more than $52,000. That’s not a bad return on investment — especially now that it sounds like a lot of the necessary infrastructure has been set up. If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time.  The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55. In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner. The iPad Fold, as it’s being touted, could arrive as soon as next year. A new report suggests that the first folding iPad could be on track to land in 2026. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks.