The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Allbirds, the eco-friendly shoe brand that shone for a while before falling on hard times, is pivoting to artificial intelligence. An Associated Press dispatch to The Globe reports that Allbirds on Wednesday announced a $50-million (U.S.) financing agreement with an unnamed institutional investor to transition to AI infrastructure, rebranding as NewBird AI. The funds will be used to acquire GPUs, with the transaction expected to close in the second quarter. The drastic change of direction has some industry watchers scratching their heads. "On the surface, it's a strange pivot," AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman said. "A company like Allbirds moving from shoes into AI infrastructure is not a very natural adjacency." It is unclear how Allbirds will reinvent itself as a "GPU-as-a-service" business that rents out computing power to AI companies. That means selling access to a huge number of graphics processors, or other specialized AI computer chips designed by companies such as Nvidia or AMD, that operate in big data centres typically run by cloud computing giants that include Amazon or Oracle. Allbird closed up 582 per cent on Wednesday at $16.99 (U.S.).