Bitcoin Miners Pivot to AI Infrastructure as Hashrate Declines and Costs Rise

Bitcoin mining companies are increasingly repositioning as artificial intelligence infrastructure providers, with CoinShares data cited by CoinDesk showing the average weighted cash cost to produce a bitcoin among public miners reached about 79 995 $ in the fourth quarter of 2025.

CoinDesk also said bitcoin traded in a range of 68 000 $ to 70 000 $, while a CoinDesk estimate put losses at 19 000 $ per BTC mined, pushing the industry toward an AI and high-performance computing pivot.

Bitcoin Magazine

CoinDesk reported that more than 70 billion dollars of cumulative contracts in AI and high-performance computing have been announced in the public mining sector, and it highlighted CoreWeave’s extended agreement with Core Scientific worth 10,2 milliards de dollars sur 12 ans.

The same CoinDesk report tied the shift to financing pressures, saying the change is funded by “un endettement important et de grandes ventes de bitcoins,” while it warned that network security could come under pressure as hashrate declines.

CoinDesk added that the price of hash hit a post-halving low of about 28 à 30 dollars par petahash par jour début mars, and said miners need electricity costing less than 0,05 $ par kilowattheure to stay profitable in cash terms.

Bitcoin mining stocks climbed on expectations of expansion into AI infrastructure, with bloomingbit saying TeraWulf, Hut 8, IREN and Riot Platforms closed up more than 5% as the rally reflected optimism about leveraging power infrastructure and data center capabilities.

bloomingbit reported that Cointelegraph said secure access to power is emerging as a critical competitive advantage as demand for AI data centers rises, and it quoted Bernstein that “The main bottleneck in AI infrastructure expansion is more likely to be power access than semiconductors.”

bloomingbit

Cointelegraph’s framing in the same bloomingbit report pointed to TeraWulf jumping as much as 17% intraday after news of its acquisition of a data center site in Kentucky on May 26.

In a separate Cointelegraph report, the same day’s market momentum was linked to the S&P 500 hitting fresh record highs above 7,500 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surging 5.6%, while miners rallied on the AI infrastructure outlook.

Cointelegraph also said Bernstein found that 11 publicly traded Bitcoin miners control a current and projected power portfolio of roughly 27 gigawatts, positioning miners as strategic partners for AI companies seeking ready-made power capacity and operational infrastructure.

TeraWulf’s AI buildout advanced through a Kentucky acquisition, with Bitcoin Magazine saying the company announced Tuesday it acquired a hyperscale data center development site in eastern Kentucky called the “Muskie Data Campus,” purchased from Industrial Equity Partners.

Bitcoin Magazine reported the site sits within the 1,000-acre EastPark Industrial Park in northeastern Kentucky and encompasses roughly 285 acres, and it said the campus is expected to support more than 1 gigawatt of AI and HPC capacity.

The same report said the first 500 megawatts is targeted to come online in the second half of 2028, with an additional 500 megawatts set for delivery by the second half of 2030, and it quoted TeraWulf Chairman and CEO Paul Prager saying, “The defining constraint in this market is no longer computing hardware—it is power, transmission infrastructure, and execution certainty.”

Separately, Crypto Briefing said IREN Limited signed a $1.6 billion purchase agreement with Dell for air-cooled systems to support its growing AI cloud business, adding to prior Dell commitments including a $5.8 billion deal for GPUs and supporting equipment.

Crypto Briefing also said IREN’s pivot became official on November 3, 2025 with a multi-year contract with Microsoft valued at approximately $9.7 billion, and it described Microsoft as the anchor tenant arrangement behind the Dell spending.