Story perspectives

Smartbird appoints Carlsten, sells shoes, pivots to AI

6/18/2026

Summary

Nadia Carlsten Rebrands

Allbirds renamed itself Smartbird and appointed Nadia Carlsten as CEO, sending the stock up more than 30%.
The company sold its footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million as it pivots to AI infrastructure.
Earlier in April, the firm rebranded to NewBird AI, which caused its market capitalization to jump sevenfold.
Carlsten previously led DCAI, directed AWS quantum computing and served at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Summary

Smartbird Targets AI

Smartbird will target mid-market pharma, financial services, and sovereign AI projects with private, single-tenant GPU clusters.
The firm will avoid competing with hyperscalers like AWS and Azure by offering smaller dedicated clusters that customers fully control.
Smartbird will purchase hardware and build customized clusters for clients instead of leasing pre-built capacity.
Public listing gives Smartbird easy capital for acquisitions, rapid hiring, and rebuilding its workforce after selling its shoe business.

History

Historical Context

Amazon Web Services introduced EC2 in August 2006, pioneering on-demand cloud compute that grew to $17.46 billion revenue by 2017 and dominates the market. In 2024, Smartbird, led by former AWS quantum chief Nadia Carlsten, launched dedicated GPU clusters to rival hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, aiming to spur niche, single-tenant AI services for pharma and finance.

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Nadia Carlsten Rebrands

Allbirds renamed itself Smartbird and appointed Nadia Carlsten as CEO, sending the stock up more than 30%.
The company sold its footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million as it pivots to AI infrastructure.
Earlier in April, the firm rebranded to NewBird AI, which caused its market capitalization to jump sevenfold.
Carlsten previously led DCAI, directed AWS quantum computing and served at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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