Core Scientific CEO says revenue from AI will help outpace Bitcoin mining
Adam Sullivan, CEO of Core Scientific, isn’t shy about how important AI will be for his publicly traded Bitcoin mining company.
“It will become more predominantly HPC over time,” he told DL News, in reference to Core Scientific’s revenue from high-performance computing, a catch-all term for computations in data warehouses like cloud processing.
But for Bitcoin miners like Core Scientific, revenue from high-performance computing is often a stand-in for revenue from AI.
He said that the transition will likely happen within the next 12 years, or the length of its contracts with CoreWeave, an AI computing heavyweight.
His projection follows an announcement last Tuesday that Core Scientific will provide CoreWeave with 70 megawatts of additional power per hour.
In total, Core Scientific has agreed to lend 270 megawatts per hour to CoreWeave, or what’s needed to power about 220,000 households in the US per year in 2022, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.
Sullivan, however, said that Core Scientific’s deals with CoreWeave aren’t indications that it will abandon Bitcoin anytime soon.
“We’re the Mike Tyson of Bitcoin mining,” he said.
Bitcoin to AI
Sullivan’s company, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, isn’t the only Bitcoin miner to pivot to AI. The data centres necessary for mining cryptocurrencies lend themselves to the gargantuan task of training AI models like those from OpenAI.
Other publicly traded firms, including Hut 8, have struck deals to repurpose Bitcoin mining data warehouses for precisely this reason.
Bit Digital, another miner, said that $8.1 million of its total revenue, about 27%, came from AI business in the first quarter of 2024.
CoreWeave acquisition
Core Scientific’s agreement to lend megawatts to CoreWeave also follows a rejected acquisition proposal in early June.
CoreWeave, which raised over $12 billion in financing over the past year, offered to acquire Core Scientific for $5.75 a share, a proposal that the Bitcoin miner rejected in early June.
Core Scientific’s share price hovers around $9.40.
Sullivan declined to answer whether there’s been any more talk of an acquisition after the initial rejection.
“Our conversations with CoreWeave have been focused on continuing to execute on the business,” he said.
Crypto market movers
- Solana is up 3.6% over the past 24 hours to trade at $146.89.
- Ethereum is up 2.1% to $3,460.65.
- Bitcoin is up 1.9% to $62,737.94.
What we’re reading
Sony Ventures Into Crypto Realm With Potential Exchange Relaunch — Milk Road
Gemini signs 5-year bitcoin sponsorship deal with Peter McCormack’s football club — The Block
Why These Bitcoin Miners Are Becoming Summer’s Hot AI Stocks — Forbes
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].
