“It’s getting, it’s getting, it’s getting kinda hectic …”
The first two days of this year’s Bitcoin 2024 Conference should have been headlined by the 1990s German Eurodance group Snap! with their 1990 hit song “I’ve got the power”.
Bitcoin 2024, sponsored by Marathon Digital, Cleanspark and Core Scientific, was buzzing with talk of High Performance Computing (HPC). The heavyweights of the Bitcoin mining industry each laid out their plans to direct varying amounts of their contracted power to AI compute. Not to be outdone, Hive, Riot, Bitfarms and Iris Energy, who each signed up for the next tier of conference sponsorship, also did their best to convince erstwhile investors that they too, could cash in on the AI craze.
The need to generate revenue and more importantly, profits, has the Bitcoin mining industry turning to HPC. Generative AI requires enormous power at a time when data center capacity is severely limited.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released research suggesting that training a large linguistic model such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 consumes almost 1,300 megawatt-hours of electricity. When compared to a single Google search, a ChatGPT query consumes almost 10x the amount of power. If ChatGPT were integrated with the 9 billion daily searches, electricity demand is estimated to increase by 10 terawatt-hours per year. This is equivalent to the amount of power consumed by 1.5 million residents of the European Union.Core Scientific is bringing 270 MW of HPC capacity online this year. Longer term, Core Scientific is moving 700 MW of their total power portfolio of 1,200 MW over to AI compute.
Iris Energy claimed to be able to retrofit their BTC mining operations to HPC in 6 to 8 weeks. They have 250 MW under construction and claim to have 3,000 MW portfolio power and land. The flagship facility in Childress County, Texas, alone will be built out to 600 MW. The question that should be asked is whether Bitcoin miners are really in a position to retrofit their facilities to meet the HPC demand. While the industry enjoys access to power, Bitcoin mining can handle intermittent power while HPC requires firm demand. The different load profile may be underestimated. The positive impact Bitcoin mining has made to the grid would certainly be negated by a pivot to HPC. The capex required for the pivot may also be difficult to come by.
Core Scientific, the self-proclaimed first mover that “created the category of BTC miners moving into HPC”, appears to acknowledge many of these challenges. Throwing caution to the wind, investors have welcomed the move to HPC. Since sharing a panel with CoreWeave during Consenus 2024 in Austin in late May, Core Scientific stock has rallied from $4.75 to a high of $11.81 before settling in around $10 today. Along the way, Core Scientific rejected an all-cash bid from CoreWeave at $5.75.

The rally in Hut 8 has also been impressive, running up from $8.67 to $21.10 before settling in around $15 today. Cipher Mining in turn rallied from $3.71 to $6.84 before giving back some of these gains to trade at $5.60 today.


The AI hype could not have come at a better time for the Bitcoin mining industry. The halving in April has crushed hash price and continues to challenge the profitability of the industry at large.
Quo vadis?
Can the AI hype persist long enough for hash price to recover?
The industry juggernauts have certainly made that case !