When Core Scientific signed a $3.5 billion deal to host synthetic intelligence (AI) information facilities earlier this 12 months, it wasn’t chasing the subsequent crypto token — it was chasing a steadier paycheck. As soon as recognized for its huge fleets of bitcoin mining rigs, the corporate is now a part of a rising development: changing energy-intensive mining operations into high-performance AI amenities.
Bitcoin miners like Core, Hut 8 (HUT) and TeraWulf (WULF) are swapping ASIC machines — the devoted bitcoin mining laptop — for GPU clusters, pushed by the lure of AI’s explosive development and the cruel economics of crypto mining.
Energy play
It is no secret that bitcoin mining requires an in depth quantity of power, which is the largest value of minting a brand new digital asset.
Again within the 2021 bull run, when the Bitcoin community’s hashrate and issue had been low, miners had been making out like bandits with margins as a lot as 90%. Then got here the brutal crypto winter and the halving occasion, which slashed the mining reward in half. In 2025, with surging hashrate and power costs, miners are actually struggling to outlive with razor-thin margins.
Nevertheless, the necessity for energy—the largest enter value—grew to become a blessing in disguise for these miners, who wanted a special technique to diversify their income sources.
Attributable to rising competitors for mining, the miners continued to acquire extra machines to remain afloat, and with it got here the necessity for extra megawatts of electrical energy at a less expensive worth. Miners invested closely in securing these low-cost power sources, corresponding to hydroelectric or stranded pure fuel websites, and developed experience in managing high-density cooling and electrical methods—abilities honed throughout the crypto increase of the early 2020s.
That is what captured the eye of AI and cloud computing companies. Whereas bitcoin depends on specialised ASICs, AI thrives on versatile GPUs like Nvidia’s H100 collection, which require related high-power environments however for parallel processing duties in machine studying. As a substitute of constructing out information facilities from scratch, taking up mining infrastructure, which already has energy prepared, grew to become a sooner technique to develop an rising urge for food for AI-related infrastructure.
Primarily, these miners aren’t simply pivoting—they’re retrofitting.
The cooling methods, low-cost power contracts, and power-dense infrastructure they constructed throughout the crypto increase now serve a brand new objective: feeding the AI fashions of firms like OpenAI and Google.
Companies like Crusoe Power offered off mining belongings to focus solely on AI, deploying GPU clusters in distant, energy-rich areas that mirror the decentralized ethos of crypto however now gasoline centralized AI hyperscalers.
Terraforming AI
Bitcoin mining has successfully “terraformed” the terrain for AI compute by constructing out scalable, power-efficient infrastructure that AI desperately wants.
As Nicholas Gregory, Board Director at Aromatic Prosperity, famous, “It may be argued bitcoin paved the way in which for digital greenback funds as could be seen with USDT/Tether. It additionally appears like bitcoin terraformed information centres for AI/GPU compute.”
This pre-existing “terraforming” permits miners to retrofit amenities shortly, typically in underneath a 12 months, in comparison with the multi-year timelines for conventional information heart builds. Companies like Crusoe Power offered off mining belongings to focus solely on AI, deploying GPU clusters in distant, energy-rich areas that mirror the decentralized ethos of crypto however now gasoline centralized AI hyperscalers.
Greater returns
In observe, it means miners can flip a facility in lower than a 12 months—far sooner than the multi-year timeline of a brand new information heart.
However AI isn’t an affordable improve.
Bitcoin mining setups are comparatively modest, with prices starting from $300,000 to $800,000 per megawatt (MW) excluding ASICs, permitting for fast scalability in response to market cycles. In the meantime, AI infrastructure calls for considerably larger capex because of the want for superior liquid cooling, redundant energy methods, and the GPUs themselves, which may value tens of 1000’s per unit and face world provide shortages. Regardless of the steeper upfront prices, AI presents miners as much as 25 occasions extra income per kilowatt-hour than bitcoin mining, making the pivot economically compelling amid rising power costs and declining crypto profitability.
A distinct segment business value billions
As AI continues to surge and crypto income tighten, bitcoin mining might grow to be a distinct segment recreation—one reserved for energy-rich areas or extremely environment friendly gamers, particularly as the subsequent in 2028 might render many operations unprofitable with out breakthroughs in effectivity or power prices.
Whereas projections present the worldwide crypto mining market rising to $3.3 billion by 2030, at a modest 6.9% CAGR, the billions can be overshadowed by AI’s exponential enlargement. In keeping with KBV Analysis, the worldwide AI in mining market is projected to achieve $435.94 billion by 2032, increasing at a compound annual development fee (CAGR) of 40.6%.
With buyers already seeing greenback indicators on this shift, the broader development suggests the long run is both a hybrid or a full conversion to AI, the place secure contracts with hyperscalers promise longevity over crypto’s boom-bust cycles.
This evolution not solely repurposes idle belongings but additionally underscores how yesterday’s crypto frontiers are forging tomorrow’s AI empires.
