After bankruptcy, AI Dongfeng returns, this Bitcoin miner expands cooperation with "son" Nvidia, stock price soars

Core Scientific, a US Bitcoin mining company, filed for bankruptcy in January this year. However, since its restructuring and return to the stock market, the company has been focusing on transitioning to the artificial intelligence business, leading to a 140% increase in its stock price.

Moreover, Core Scientific announced on Tuesday that it has expanded its partnership with CoreWeave, a startup supported by NVIDIA, reaching a $6.7 billion agreement. CoreWeave is one of the main chip technology providers for running AI models. Core Scientific will provide an additional 112 megawatts of computing infrastructure to support CoreWeave's operations. This news caused Core Scientific's stock to surge by 18.8% on Tuesday, reaching $9.76.

Core Scientific stated that this agreement is expected to bring an additional $2 billion in revenue to the company over the next 12 years, on top of the previously estimated $4.7 billion in revenue. In total, the company plans to provide approximately 382 megawatts of infrastructure to CoreWeave by the first half of 2026, and may increase power by 118 megawatts at other Core Scientific sites.

These sites are expected to undergo modifications starting in the second half of 2024 and be fully operational by the first half of 2026.

"Since our relisting in January, we have witnessed tremendous growth and have been focused on developing top-tier digital infrastructure," said Adam Sullivan, CEO of Core Scientific, in a media interview. "This infrastructure advantage enables us to diversify revenue and reallocate certain facilities to meet the growing demand for AI technology."

Not only Core Scientific, but publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have been shifting towards AI infrastructure business in the past few months, possibly due to mining becoming less profitable after the Bitcoin halving in April. These companies have invested heavily in building data centers across the United States, which can be repurposed to serve new customer categories.

However, some analysts point out that transitioning to AI is not as simple as repurposing existing mining infrastructure and machines, as the demands and network requirements are different.

Analysts from Needham wrote in a report in May that almost all current infrastructure of mining companies needs to be "rebuilt to accommodate high-performance computing (HPC)."

The management of Core Scientific had previously participated in a closed-door roundtable meeting with former President Trump on the mining industry, and Trump has recently joined the discussion on the integration of Bitcoin mining and AI.

According to a report from JP Morgan, as of June 15th, the total market value of 14 major publicly traded US Bitcoin mining companies reached a historical high of $22.8 billion, benefiting from the AI transformationFor example, mining company Bit Digital currently estimates that 27% of its revenue comes from AI. The company announced in June that it had reached an agreement with a client to supply NVIDIA's GPUs in data centers in Iceland, expecting to generate $92 million in revenue annually. Some of the funds used to pay for the GPUs come from selling part of its cryptocurrency holdings.

In addition, Miami-based Hut 8 announced in June that it had raised $150 million in debt from private equity firm Coatue to help build its AI data center.

Core Scientific previously dropped by 7.5% due to the global stock market crash affecting cryptocurrency and AI companies. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald described this sell-off as a buying opportunity for publicly traded mining stocks.

In June this year, CoreWeave proposed to acquire Core Scientific for $1.02 billion, and shortly after, the two parties reached a preliminary agreement. However, Core Scientific rejected this offer. Core Scientific is currently valued at approximately $1.5 billion