Answering a question sent by PM publicly in case anyone else is wondering the same thing.
Hello,
I read you are starting a datacenter. Do you accept all kinds of mining Hardware? Is remote access included? Will you provide psu for miners like the S3? Do you calculate actual power usage? Example: For 2 S3 about 0.75 *90 $. What happens if the miners are sent to you from china? Do you have any import duties that would be charged on top?
Thanks
We currently are focusing on high-density rack-mountable hardware. We may accept S3s later, but there are additional problems with cooling and powering devices at that (lower) density and form factor that we do not want to tackle at the moment. I've just ordered 2 S3s to experiment with so far. If we do accept S3s, we will likely offer our own server PSU arrangement for them (at a good price), and we will also likely charge a higher rate for them, because it costs us more to run them (in rent and in infrastructural capital costs). We'll still charge less than probably anyone else, though. We're flexible about our hosting plans, so if you made us a good enough offer, we could accelerate our Antminer infrastructure development.
We will either measure actual usage continuously or with random sampling. If you're on a random sampling scheme, we request that you inform us whenever you make changes that may affect power consumption significantly.
There are generally no significant import duties for importing computer equipment to the USA. A 3% duty may be charged on equipment that you carry across the border yourself when flying in, but for freight or courier shipments, it's duty-free. The customer pays shipping in both directions, of course.
Remote access will be included. For security, we're working on a VLAN setup with a web portal for temporary port forwarding keyed to a signature from your bitcoin address. That might not be ready until September, so there might be a period during which we have to improvise some other way of securely offering access to your miners. We may also have a VPN option.