When Core Scientific signed a $3.5 billion deal to host synthetic intelligence (AI) knowledge facilities earlier this 12 months, it wasn’t chasing the following 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 pattern: 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 pc — for GPU clusters, pushed by the lure of AI’s explosive progress and the tough economics of crypto mining.
Energy play
It is no secret that bitcoin mining requires an in depth quantity of power, which is the most important price of minting a brand new digital asset.
Again within the 2021 bull run, when the Bitcoin community’s hashrate and issue have been low, miners have 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 at the moment are struggling to outlive with razor-thin margins.
Nonetheless, the necessity for energy—the most important enter price—grew to become a blessing in disguise for these miners, who wanted a distinct technique to diversify their income sources.
Because of 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, equivalent to hydroelectric or stranded pure gasoline websites, and developed experience in managing high-density cooling and electrical methods—abilities honed in the course of 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 sequence, which require related high-power environments however for parallel processing duties in machine studying. As a substitute of constructing out knowledge facilities from scratch, taking on mining infrastructure, which already has energy prepared, grew to become a sooner technique to develop an growing 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 in the course of the crypto increase now serve a brand new goal: feeding the AI fashions of firms like OpenAI and Google.
Companies like Crusoe Vitality offered off mining property to focus solely on AI, deploying GPU clusters in distant, energy-rich places that mirror the decentralized ethos of crypto however now gas 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 may be seen with USDT/Tether. It additionally appears like bitcoin terraformed knowledge centres for AI/GPU compute.”
This pre-existing “terraforming” permits miners to retrofit amenities rapidly, typically in beneath a 12 months, in comparison with the multi-year timelines for conventional knowledge heart builds. Companies like Crusoe Vitality offered off mining property to focus solely on AI, deploying GPU clusters in distant, energy-rich places that mirror the decentralized ethos of crypto however now gas 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 knowledge 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 increased capex because of the want for superior liquid cooling, redundant energy methods, and the GPUs themselves, which might price tens of hundreds per unit and face international provide shortages. Regardless of the steeper upfront prices, AI gives miners as much as 25 instances 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 price billions
As AI continues to surge and crypto income tighten, bitcoin mining might turn out to be a distinct segment sport—one reserved for energy-rich areas or extremely environment friendly gamers, particularly as the following 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 response to KBV Analysis, the worldwide AI in mining market is projected to succeed in $435.94 billion by 2032, increasing at a compound annual progress fee (CAGR) of 40.6%.
With traders already seeing greenback indicators on this shift, the broader pattern suggests the longer term 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 property but in addition underscores how yesterday’s crypto frontiers are forging tomorrow’s AI empires.
