Core Scientific Inc. (NASDAQ: CORZ) announced the appointment of Steve Smith to its board of directors, effective immediately. Smith will also serve on the company's Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.

Smith brings over 35 years of experience in data center, digital infrastructure and technology industries. He currently serves as chief executive officer of Zayo Group, a global internet network provider, a position he has held since 2020.

From 2007 to 2018, Smith served as CEO and president of Equinix, where he led the company's growth from approximately $400 million to more than $4 billion in annual revenue and oversaw the integration of more than 20 acquisitions. Before Equinix, he held senior leadership roles at HP Services, Lucent Technologies and Electronic Data Systems Corporation.

Smith currently serves on the boards of directors of Zayo and NEXTDC, a publicly traded Australian data center company. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.

"Steve is a respected industry veteran with a proven record of value creation, deep commercial relationships and extensive operational expertise," said Adam Sullivan, chief executive officer of Core Scientific. "His experience will be highly valuable as Core Scientific executes one of the market's largest multi-site AI infrastructure build-outs."

Core Scientific operates facilities for high-density colocation services serving artificial intelligence workloads and provides digital infrastructure solutions. The company operates 11 facilities across seven states including Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas.