According to Fixygen, major Bitcoin miners are accelerating the repurposing of some of their energy facilities and infrastructure into data centers for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing amid a deteriorating Bitcoin mining economy, Cointelegraph reports.
In this new model, the miners’ key asset is not ASIC equipment—which is unsuitable for AI computing—but rather access to electricity, substations, cooling systems, permits, and ready-to-use sites. It is precisely the shortage of grid-connected power that has become one of the main constraints on the development of AI data centers. The total capacity of AI data centers worldwide reached 29.6 GW by the end of 2025, whereas in 2022 it was less than 1 GW.
Publicly traded mining companies have already concluded a number of major deals in the AI and HPC segments. In particular, in November 2025, IREN signed a five-year agreement with Microsoft for GPU cloud services worth approximately $9.7 billion for a 750-MW campus in Texas. Hut 8 signed a 15-year, $7 billion contract with Fluidstack for the River Bend facility in Louisiana, while Core Scientific expanded its agreement with CoreWeave to $10.2 billion over 12 years.
According to CoinShares, public mining companies have already announced contracts in the fields of AI and high-performance computing totaling more than $70 billion. Companies with such agreements are valued significantly higher by the market: their price-to-earnings ratio for the last 12 months stands at 12.3, compared to 5.9 for miners that remain primarily focused on Bitcoin mining.
Analysts estimate that the share of AI revenue among public mining companies could rise to approximately 70% by the end of 2026, compared to about 30% in the first quarter. This trend is effectively transforming some mining companies into infrastructure operators for the AI market.
Pressure on traditional mining has intensified due to declining margins. According to JPMorgan’s estimates, the average cost of mining a single Bitcoin is about $78,000, and approximately 20% of miners are operating at a loss. Based on current prices, Bitcoin is trading at around $62,500, which is below the estimated average cost of production.
At the same time, the transition to AI is not cheap. According to CoinShares, a typical crypto mining infrastructure costs $700,000 to $1 million per 1 MW, while liquid-cooled AI facilities may require $8–15 million per 1 MW. This increases companies’ debt burden and makes them dependent on large clients—hyperscalers.
For the market, this signals a shift in investment logic within the mining sector. Whereas Bitcoin price, hash rate, and electricity costs were previously the main factors, long-term contracts with AI clients, access to capital, and the ability to quickly repurpose facilities for GPU infrastructure are now becoming increasingly important for some companies.
Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are under pressure following the halving due to the reduction in block rewards, high network difficulty, and Bitcoin price volatility. Expansion into AI and HPC allows them to diversify their revenue, but at the same time shifts their business into the capital-intensive data center segment, where debt, facility commissioning timelines, and customer concentration remain key risks.
AI, BITCOIN, DATA CENTER, HPC, MINING
Global investment in data centers, including M&A deals, reached a record $61 billion in the first 11 months of 2025, compared to $60.8 billion for the whole of 2024, CNBC reports, citing data from S&P Global. This was achieved with fewer transactions – 104 compared to 129 for the whole of last year. Most of the deals took place in the US, followed by the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
Investments grew amid a “global construction boom,” S&P notes. In addition, the surge in debt financing contributed to the upturn.
According to the agency, debt issuance in the data center market in January-November amounted to $182 billion, compared to $92 billion for the whole of 2024. This included Google (owned by Alphabet Inc.) raising $29 billion, Amazon.com Inc. raising $15 billion, and Meta raising about $31 billion.
The trend toward increased borrowing has sparked investor concerns. Oracle Corp. shares fell 5% on Wednesday after media reports that Blue Owl had refused to invest in its Michigan data center amid Oracle’s growing debt. Oracle denied these reports, but after they appeared, investors began selling Broadcom, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices shares, and the Nasdaq Composite fell by a maximum of about 1.81% in a month. A week earlier, Oracle shares fell 12% after the publication of reports showing an unexpected increase in its capital expenditures.
In November, investors also actively sold shares in technology companies, fearing an AI bubble.
Yuri Struta, an analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence for the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sectors, said his team believes market concerns about AI and Oracle are temporary.
According to experts, these fears are unlikely to have a significant impact on the construction of data center capacity and M&A in this market.
At the same time, the construction of new data centers may be temporarily limited by a shortage of energy sources, making existing centers more valuable, Struta says.
“In Europe, data center capacity is expected to be built more slowly than in other regions, but it is unclear whether this will lead to a surge in M&A activity amid a shortage of assets,” he said. Overall, the analyst expects such activity in the data center market to intensify in 2026.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the already high valuations get even higher,” he told CNBC, noting that his team expects demand for AI applications to continue growing at a rapid pace next year.
The Irish low cost air carrier Ryanair is considering the possibility of opening its own data center in Ukraine, airline executive director Michael O’Leary has said in an interview with the Ukrainian Travel Gazette. “At a meeting with President [of Ukraine] Petro Poroshenko, we discussed the option of establishing our subsidiaries in Ukraine. In particular, we would be interested in the opportunity to create our own data center here. Now a similar center in Poland has more than 100 Ukrainian employees, and we need to expand the staff. It would be logical to create another such center for the collection and processing of information in the territory of Ukraine and employ here about 250 local IT specialists but not take them to Poland,” he said.
In addition, according to the expert, the airline in the long term is also interested in opening a center for aircraft maintenance in Ukraine, for which it is necessary to conduct an examination of the regulation of such activities in our country, including by European bodies.
He also noted that the airline is interested in the employment of Ukrainian pilots and stewards.
“But this is problematic enough, since we are a European airline, and Ukraine is not a member of the European Union. All of your pilots and stewards must verify their licenses under EASA requirements, and this a time consuming process,” he said.
At the same time, he noted that citizens of Ukraine already fly in the crews of the airline, and expressed hope their number will increase in future.
