European blockchain company The Bitfury Group, valued recently at more than $1 billion, has launched its artificial intelligence (AI) division, the company’s top official told in an interview.

Axar.az reports citing Reuters that the AI division will operate alongside Bitfury’s existing blockchain services and remain part of the company.Bitfury is one of a handful of blockchain companies around the world with at least a $1 billion valuation. That list includes Coinbase, a U.S.-based exchange, and China’s Bitmain, the largest cryptocurrency mining firm in the world.

Valery Vavilov, chief executive officer and co-founder of Bitfury, said the need to analyze and extract value from tons of available data drove the company to go into artificial intelligence, that branch of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that act and behave like humans.

Bitfury also said it appointed technology expert Fabrizio Del Maffeo to lead the AI division. Del Maffeo was the vice president and managing director of AAEON Technology Europe, the AI and internet of things computing company within Taiwan’s ASUS Group.