Publicly traded Chinese gaming company The9 (NCTY) announced an agreement to buy 26,007 bitcoin ASICs as part of its plan to launch a cryptocurrency mining initiative.

The9's subsidiary NBTC will own and operate the machines, which are expected to total 549 petahashes per second (PH/s) of hash power. The9 says a "majority" of these mining machines have already been deployed in Xinjiang, Sichuan and Gansu. Per a press release, Canaan's (CAN) former director, Jianping Kong, will also help the Shanghai-based Internet company launch and maintain its cryptocurrency mining operations.Details about which machines and from where The9 purchased them were not disclosed, but The9 said it signed five separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to secure the machines.The9 will issue shares to pay for the new machines, but didn't disclose how many shares are to be issued. Shares of the company gained more than 18% Monday from their Friday close, currently trading above $13.