Bitcoin miners spent years building out massive power infrastructure across the US. Now AI companies want it, and they’re willing to pay handsomely for the privilege.
Surging electricity demand from AI data centers, which reached approximately 29.6 GW globally by the end of 2025 (up roughly 200x from 2022), has created a zero-sum competition for grid capacity that miners simply cannot win on economics alone.
The great pivot is already underway
Bitcoin’s network hashrate has dropped from over 1.14 ZH/s to somewhere between 868 and 900 EH/s by mid-to-late 2026. That’s a decline of roughly 15-21% from the peak, driven largely by public miners repurposing their facilities for AI and high-performance computing workloads.
Publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have signed contracts totaling between $70 billion and $90 billion for AI and HPC hosting. Some operators project that AI could account for as much as 70% of their revenue by the end of 2026.
