US Bitcoin miners pivot to AI and HPC amid fee income uncertainty – VanEck Gino Matos · 2 weeks ago · 2 min be taught
The pivoting adds the deserve to scale electrical energy capability to contain AI and HPC.
2 min be taught
Up to this point: Feb. 20, 2025 AT 11:56 PM UTC
Quilt artwork/illustration by capacity of CryptoSlate. Image contains blended philosophize that might per chance per chance presumably consist of AI-generated philosophize.
Bitcoin (BTC) miners are increasingly fascinating in opposition to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-efficiency computing (HPC) as transaction fee revenues dwell inconsistent, fixed with a recent VanEck memoir.
The company authorized that while community congestion can lead to non permanent fee spikes, long-time frame on-chain income thunder stays risky ensuing from the upward thrust of off-chain solutions equivalent to alternate-traded funds (ETFs), futures markets, layer-2 (L2) solutions, and centralized exchanges.
As block rewards halve every four years, Bitcoin miners must adapt since BTC’s discover desires to double to preserve income levels. This dynamic highlights the importance of pivoting to AI and HPC as diversification programs.
Pivoting strikes
Winning Bitcoin miners are integrating alternative programs to optimize income streams.
Some exercise mining to subsidize grid growth in remote vitality markets. In distinction,others leverage sleek vitality infrastructure to beef up AI and HPC workloads, which offer better margins and unlock contemporary financing avenues.
Improvements in liquid cooling systems, chip variety, and co-internet page technologies additional toughen operational efficiencies.
The shift in opposition to AI and HPC has gained momentum following CoreWeave’s 700MW AI/HPC agreement in 2024, prompting a few Bitcoin miners to explore identical income streams.
Bitfarms (BITF) has engaged AI/HPC consultants to assess feasibility across North American sites. At the same time, BitDeered (BTDR) has cited ongoing discussions with AI/HPC pattern companions after finishing up its data heart consulting engagement.
Cipher Mining (CIFR) secured a $50 million investment from SoftBank in January to beef up its HPC data heart growth. Rebellion Platforms (RIOT) expanded its board of directors to consist of experience in AI/HPC investment banking, data products and providers, and precise property.
Meanwhile, HIVE Digital Applied sciences (HIVE) appointed Craig Tavares as President and COO of Buzz HPC to lead the company’s thunder in HPC and GPU cloud products and providers.
Iris Energy (IREN) is advancing its AI and HPC initiatives with a 75 megawatts (MW) liquid-cooled AI/HPC data heart region to initiate in Childress, Texas, by the 2nd half of 2025.
Moreover, the firm plans to magnify its Sweetwater internet page with one other 600 MW. The growth will bring the total capability to 2 GW, making it no doubt one of North America’s supreme AI/HPC-eligible sites.
The memoir authorized the rarity of such colossal-scale sites and emphasized their strategic advantage in providing dense compute clusters very critical for AI model coaching and iterative workloads.
Scaling electrical capability
The pivoting to contemporary industry items, equivalent to AI, has added to Bitcoin miners’ necessity to scale electrical capability.
The memoir assessed 13 public Bitcoin miners, revealing a collective operational capability of 7.1 gigawatts (GW). Enlargement plans mission a upward thrust to 11.7 GW by 2025, 15.9 GW by 2026, and 20.4 GW by 2027, representing a compound annual thunder rate of 42% over three years.
An additional 7.3 GW pipeline is planned previous 2028, though right here is actually apt a conservative estimate given the competitive nature of vitality procurement in Bitcoin mining.
Scaling these operations would require critical investment. Assuming growth through 2027 employs a modernized Bitmain Antminer S21 Consultants quick, priced at $5,000 every, alongside $450,000 per MW of supporting infrastructure, the total capital expenditure is estimated at $24.8 billion.
Nonetheless, Bitcoin miners usually are no longer going to devote all capability to mining since securing electrical capability has change into a key competency amid rising AI vitality demands.
Goldman Sachs estimates that AI for the time being consumes approximately 7.7 GW of world data heart vitality usage, accounting for 14% of the total. The resolve is projected to elongate to 22.7 GW (27%) by 2027.
Given this pattern, Bitcoin miners are anticipated to allocate 20-30% of their electrical capability to AI and HPC workloads, reflecting a strategic pivot in opposition to extra sustainable and different income streams.
