How MARA, Core Scientific, and IREN Are Shifting from Bitcoin Mining to Compete in AI Compute Infrastructure

In 2026, the Bitcoin mining industry is undergoing its most fundamental identity transformation since its inception.

On one hand, the Bitcoin price has lingered around $70,000 for an extended period, while mining costs have surged toward $80,000, resulting in a loss of nearly $20,000 per coin. On the other hand, explosive growth in demand for AI computing power is fueling an entirely new industry opportunity—data center hosting and computing power leasing—where revenue per unit of electricity can reach up to 25 times that of traditional mining.

Faced with these two divergent paths, publicly listed mining companies have made a unanimous decision: sell Bitcoin, acquire power plants, and pivot to become AI infrastructure providers.

By the end of Q1 2026, listed mining firms had signed over $70 billion in AI and HPC contracts. Some companies expect up to 70% of their revenue to come from AI businesses by the end of 2026, fundamentally altering the industry’s capital structure and risk profile.

Among them, MARA Holdings, Core Scientific, and IREN have taken the most representative transformation paths, each choosing a distinctly different strategy—one acquired a power plant and built its own facilities, one partnered with a hosting giant, and one forged a direct alliance with NVIDIA. As the industry collectively migrates from "mining" to "computing power giants," who is most likely to become the next beneficiary within the NVIDIA ecosystem?

Three Financial Reports, One Direction

In May 2026, three Nasdaq-listed mining companies released their latest quarterly earnings almost simultaneously, sending a clear signal: Bitcoin mining is retreating from its role as the core business, while AI infrastructure is taking over as the main source of revenue.

MARA Holdings disclosed its Q1 2026 results on May 12: revenue reached $174.6 million, down 18% year-over-year; net loss widened to $1.26 billion, more than double the $533 million loss from the same period last year. However, the real market focus was not the loss itself—which was mainly due to fair value changes caused by the drop in Bitcoin price—but the company’s concurrent sale of 20,880 Bitcoins for roughly $1.5 billion, and its announcement to acquire the 505-megawatt Long Ridge Energy & Power natural gas plant in Ohio for about $1.5 billion, officially launching its strategic shift toward operating AI data center infrastructure.

Core Scientific reported a $347.2 million net loss in its May 7 earnings, but hosting revenue soared from $8.6 million in the prior year to $77.5 million. For the first time, AI hosting revenue surpassed Bitcoin mining, becoming the company’s largest revenue stream. The company also sold 2,385 Bitcoins, raising $208.3 million to fund AI data center expansion.

IREN likewise released its financials on May 7: quarterly revenue was $144.8 million, down 22% quarter-over-quarter, with a net loss of $247.8 million. However, AI cloud service revenue jumped 94.2% quarter-over-quarter, from $17.3 million to $33.6 million. The company also announced a five-year, $3.4 billion AI cloud service contract with NVIDIA.

Three companies, three financial reports, one direction: selling Bitcoin, leveraging debt for expansion, and betting on AI.

Key Turning Points in Mining Company Transformation

In April 2024, Bitcoin underwent its fourth halving, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Meanwhile, network difficulty climbed to an all-time high of 156 trillion, while average transaction fees dropped to a low of $0.58—mining revenue sources faced triple compression.

Here’s the timeline:

• Second half of 2024 to first half of 2025: Core Scientific was first to sign a series of 12-year hosting agreements with AI cloud computing firm CoreWeave, totaling over $10 billion. This partnership became the benchmark for mining companies transitioning to AI data centers.
• Second half of 2025: IREN purchased 4,200 NVIDIA Blackwell B200 GPUs, investing approximately $193 million, expanding its GPU fleet to about 8,500 units, officially launching its AI cloud business, and soon becoming a "priority partner" of NVIDIA.
• Q4 2025: Weighted average cash mining cost for listed miners rose to roughly $88,000, while Bitcoin traded between $68,000 and $70,000, marking the industry’s entry into a phase where each mined coin incurred a loss of nearly $19,000.
• Q1 2026: MARA sold 20,880 Bitcoins in batches, cashing in about $1.5 billion; Core Scientific sold 2,385 BTC, Bitdeer liquidated its Bitcoin reserves, and an industry-wide wave of "selling coins to pivot" began.
• April–May 2026: MARA announced the acquisition of Long Ridge gas power plant; IREN completed $3 billion in convertible bond financing (including oversubscription) and finalized a $3.4 billion contract with NVIDIA; Hut 8 signed a $9.8 billion, 15-year AI data center leasing contract.

Breaking Down the Transformation Paths of Three Mining Companies

Economic Drivers of Transformation

The primary reason mining companies are pivoting en masse to AI data centers lies in a set of straightforward economic figures: According to a CoinShares report, AI data centers generate up to 25 times the revenue per kilowatt-hour compared to Bitcoin mining. Building AI infrastructure costs about $8–15 million per megawatt—much higher than the $700,000–$1 million per megawatt for mining—but AI offers structurally higher and more stable returns, usually secured by multi-year contracts.

Capital market valuation logic has fundamentally shifted as well: mining firms with AI exposure are valued at about 12.3 times future revenue, while pure mining companies trade at just 5.9 times, a premium of more than 100%.

Comparing the Three Companies’ Paths

MARA: A $1.5 Billion Energy Gamble

MARA chose the heaviest path for its transformation—direct control of power assets. The company acquired Long Ridge Energy & Power in Ohio for about $1.5 billion, including a 505-megawatt natural gas plant and over 1,600 acres of land, planning to build a scalable AI data center campus exceeding 1 gigawatt. This asset is expected to contribute roughly $144 million in EBITDA annually.

MARA also confirmed it will halt large-scale ASIC miner purchases and announced a 15% workforce reduction, saving about $12 million annually. The company stated that up to 90% of its non-hosted mining capacity can be repurposed for AI and IT workloads.

Notably, after selling 20,880 Bitcoins, MARA still holds 35,303 BTC, valued at about $2.9 billion at the time, making it the world’s fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder. This means the company hasn’t fully abandoned its Bitcoin exposure, but is instead using its Bitcoin reserves as a "source of strategic financial flexibility" as the mining profit model fails.

Core Scientific: The First to Take the Leap

Among the three leading mining companies, Core Scientific started its AI pivot earliest and has made the fastest progress.

The company signed a multi-phase, 12-year hosting agreement with AI cloud computing giant CoreWeave, worth over $10 billion and covering 590 megawatts of hosting capacity. Under the agreement, CoreWeave will cover all capital investment costs to upgrade Core Scientific’s existing mining infrastructure to HPC-ready status—allowing Core Scientific to transition to an AI infrastructure provider with relatively low capital expenditures.

Recent financials show Core Scientific’s hosting revenue reached $77.5 million in Q1 2026, up from just $8.6 million a year earlier—an increase of more than 800%. AI hosting revenue has officially surpassed Bitcoin mining, becoming the company’s primary income pillar.

Core Scientific currently operates 10 data centers with total power capacity of about 1.9 gigawatts and plans to expand its Muskogee campus in Oklahoma to about 1.5 gigawatts.

IREN: A New Species Deeply Integrated with NVIDIA

IREN’s transformation strategy stands in sharp contrast to MARA and Core Scientific—it’s not hosting, nor buying power plants, but buying GPUs, building clusters, and operating its own AI cloud services. This entails heavier capital investment but also higher value capture.

In August 2025, IREN purchased 4,200 NVIDIA Blackwell B200 GPUs for about $193 million, nearly doubling its GPU fleet to around 8,500 units. The company soon became a "priority partner" of NVIDIA, gaining direct access to chip supply channels.

In May 2026, IREN announced a five-year, $3.4 billion AI cloud service contract with NVIDIA, which will supply air-cooled Blackwell GPUs. The contract also gives NVIDIA the right to purchase up to 30 million shares of IREN common stock at an exercise price of $70 per share, representing a potential $2.1 billion equity investment.

IREN’s guidance is ambitious: the company aims to achieve $3.7 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026, with $3.1 billion already secured through signed contracts. Its 2026 goal is to deploy 150,000 GPUs, totaling 480 megawatts of capacity.

However, over 90% of IREN’s current revenue still comes from Bitcoin mining, with AI cloud service revenue at just $33.6 million—far short of the $3.7 billion target. This means the company faces significant execution pressure in the next two years.

What the Market Is Debating

The industry-wide pivot to AI data centers among mining companies has sparked three main viewpoints in the market.

Viewpoint One: The transformation is rational—miners have structural advantages

Supporters point to the time barriers in power infrastructure. In the US, building a new data center from planning to grid connection typically takes 3–5 years, while mining companies have already completed power infrastructure deployment—substations, transmission lines, and grid capacity are all in place. Bernstein analysts estimate that miners’ grid access can shorten data center deployment time by up to 75%. With AI computing power demand evolving on a quarterly basis, this speed advantage is a core competitive edge for mining companies pivoting to AI.

Additionally, AI infrastructure promises profit margins above 85%, secured by multi-year contracts, in stark contrast to the volatility of Bitcoin mining.

Viewpoint Two: Financing pressure is immense—short-term losses are the price of transformation

Opponents worry about miners’ debt levels. IREN issued $3 billion in convertible bonds; Core Scientific issued $3.3 billion in senior secured notes; MARA took on $785 million in debt alongside the Long Ridge acquisition. These companies are betting that AI revenue will ramp up quickly enough to cover debt costs, but the construction cycle for AI data centers means large-scale revenue may not materialize until 2027 or later.

MARA’s initial AI infrastructure deployment won’t begin until the first half of 2027, with full operations potentially not until mid-2028. Core Scientific still recorded a $347 million net loss in Q1. IREN’s quarterly net loss reached $247.8 million.

Viewpoint Three: Miners selling Bitcoin and exiting threaten Bitcoin network security

This perspective touches on deeper structural contradictions. Data shows listed miners have collectively reduced their Bitcoin holdings by over 15,000 coins from peak levels. Bitcoin’s total network hash rate dropped from an average of about 985 EH/s in Q4 2025 to 873 EH/s in Q1 2026, with several rounds of negative difficulty adjustments.

The miners who safeguard Bitcoin network security are the same companies selling Bitcoin and reallocating capital to AI data center construction. When mining is no longer profitable and AI becomes lucrative, capital naturally flows toward higher returns. But if enough miners make the same choice, the network’s hash rate security budget will continue to shrink.

Industry Impact Analysis: From Mining Companies to Digital Infrastructure Operators

The collective transformation of mining companies is reshaping the industry landscape in three key dimensions.

First, capital structure is fundamentally changing. Before the pivot, miners’ balance sheets were anchored by Bitcoin; after, their core assets are power plants, data centers, and long-term service contracts. This shifts income sources from highly volatile crypto assets to relatively stable contractual cash flows, completely rewriting the risk-return profile of their capital structure.

Second, valuation logic is shifting. As previously mentioned, AI exposure is granting miners significant valuation premiums—mining companies with AI business are valued at about 12.3 times future revenue, while pure mining companies are at 5.9 times. Investors are no longer pricing miners based on "Bitcoin price multiples," but on "data center operator contract revenue multiples." Some miners may be reclassified as data center or AI infrastructure stocks within the next 12–18 months.

Third, industry competition is becoming stratified. Not all miners are equipped to make the transition. Leading firms leverage their power asset scale, financing capability, and client relationships to secure their positions, while small and mid-sized miners may be forced to remain in pure mining, facing deteriorating profit models and limited transformation capacity. The industry could see a wave of mergers and consolidation.

Conclusion

The transformation stories of MARA, Core Scientific, and IREN essentially revolve around the same theme: in a world of highly volatile crypto assets, controlling physical infrastructure—power, land, cooling systems—may be a more enduring moat than simply holding digital assets.

MARA chose the heaviest path, spending $1.5 billion to acquire a power plant, aiming to turn "energy control" into a long-term competitive barrier. Core Scientific opted for the lightest route, using a hosting model to absorb AI giants’ excess computing demand, trading existing infrastructure for stable, long-term contractual cash flows. IREN took a path deeply integrated with NVIDIA, using cutting-edge GPUs and aggressive revenue targets to define its new identity.

These three paths represent three distinct risk-return profiles and three different visions for the future of the AI infrastructure industry. The only certainty is that miners’ identity is being thoroughly rewritten as "computing power giants," and in this transformation, those who can deliver on execution will be the true beneficiaries.