The all-out search for electricity to sustain the insatiable appetite for artificial intelligence is providing a lift to another industry with considerable energy usage: crypto mining.
Seven months after a bitcoin (BTC-USD) halving event slashed the rewards miners receive for verifying bitcoin transactions, crypto mining firms have found revenue by converting their existing energy to power a different kind of data center equipped to run AI applications.
Earlier this month, Galaxy Digital (GLXY.TO) became the latest miner to sign an agreement with a US-based hyperscaler. Galaxy committed all 800 megawatts of its mining capacity to host high-performance computers.
“It makes it a better investment than bitcoin, certainly over a three-, four-, or five-year horizon,” Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital CEO and founder, told Yahoo Finance (video above). “The data center play looks a lot more profitable.”
The new source of revenue is a welcome sign two years after a crypto winter nearly wiped out major miners.
While the price of bitcoin has more than quadrupled since the lows of 2022 to hit record highs, most recently spurred by Donald Trump’s win, miners say retrofitting existing data centers to host graphic processing units offers more stability in the long run.
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Jason Les, CEO of Riot Platforms, which owns mining facilities in Texas and Kentucky, said his company has received multiple inquiries from “blue-chip” AI companies looking to secure large-scale power capacity. In most cases, the tech companies have offered to cover the capital costs involved with retrofitting existing facilities.
“It’s consistent and reliable cash flow,” Les said, adding, “Cash flow that is not subject to the volatility of bitcoin like the rest of our business.” Les noted that he has had discussions with “very credible counterparties.”
“If you’re working with a well-capitalized partner, you have confidence that they will perform under those agreements for a very long period of time,” he said.
In many ways, the amount of energy capacity needed to power AI and crypto mining lends the two sectors to partnerships. Energy demand from data centers is expected to roughly double by the end of the decade, with AI as the biggest driver. Bitcoin mining, meanwhile, accounts for nearly 1% of global energy demand, according to the International Energy Agency.
While hyperscalers have sought access to all energy sources, including nuclear, miners offer the fastest means to deploy power capacity, short of building a power plant or data center from scratch.