Bitcoin Miners Turn to AI After Halving—and for Some, It’s Paying Off

Bitcoin Miners Turn to AI After Halving—and for Some, It’s Paying Off

How Bitcoin Miners Are Using AI to Survive—and Sometimes Thrive—Post-Halving

In the wake of the 2024 Bitcoin halving—which slashed mining rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC—many Bitcoin mining companies found themselves at a crossroads: evolve or risk fading into irrelevance. With block rewards shrinking and energy costs rising, some miners bet big on artificial intelligence, repurposing infrastructure for AI computing and high-performance workloads.

Now, a year later, the picture is coming into focus. For a few, the AI pivot has been a much-needed revenue lifeline. For others, it's more of a strategic hedge. And for at least one company, it was a path not worth taking.

Core Scientific: From Bankruptcy to $3.5B AI Deal

Once on the brink of collapse, Core Scientific is now one of the clearest examples of a Bitcoin miner successfully leveraging AI. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2022, the firm re-emerged in 2024 with a fresh strategy—shifting from pure Bitcoin mining to colocation services for AI firms.

Source: Nasdaq

In June 2024, it inked a 12-year, $3.5 billion deal with CoreWeave to host AI operations, marking one of the largest partnerships between a miner and an AI company to date. Despite a year-over-year revenue drop in Q1 2025, news of renewed acquisition talks with CoreWeave has pushed its stock higher, signaling investor confidence in the shift.

Hut 8: Building an AI Side Hustle While Doubling Down on BTC

For Hut 8, AI isn’t the main business—but it's becoming a meaningful branch. In late 2024, the company launched Highrise AI, a GPU-as-a-Service unit equipped with over 1,000 Nvidia H100 chips. Though its Bitcoin output dropped significantly in Q1 2025 (167 BTC vs. 716 BTC the year prior), Hut 8 is holding steady with a 10,273 BTC treasury—the ninth-largest among public companies.

Meanwhile, it’s doubling down on mining through its majority-owned subsidiary American Bitcoin, which recently raised $220 million for new mining equipment. AI may be a backup plan for now, but it’s on the roadmap.

Iren and Hive: Growing AI Revenue Share

Australian miner Iren (formerly Iris Energy) and Canada-based Hive are gradually turning AI into a revenue stream that matters.

Iren now runs around 4,300 GPUs and generated $3.6 million in Q3 2025 from AI cloud services—a 33% quarterly jump. It’s also building a Texas data center and a 20,000-GPU site in Canada. However, a class-action lawsuit over its Texas readiness could cloud the outlook.

IREN Expands AI Cloud with 2.4k NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs
New B200 & B300 fleet lifts total to 4.3k GPUs, unlocking next-gen training and inference at scale…

Hive, rebranded from Hive Blockchain, invested $30 million in Nvidia GPU clusters and saw AI and HPC revenue triple year-over-year to $10.1 million, now making up nearly 9% of its total revenue.

Riot and MARA: Not in a Hurry to Change

While miners like Core and Hive are all-in on AI, giants like Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings are taking a slower, more calculated approach.

Riot hasn’t signed any AI contracts yet, but it's evaluating a major HPC buildout at its 600-megawatt Corsicana site in Texas. The firm mined 1,530 BTC in Q1 2025 and holds 19,225 BTC, the fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin stash globally.

MARA, with a whopping 50,000 BTC, is second only to MicroStrategy among public companies. It's testing immersion-cooled HPC setups and rebranding its strategy around edge computing, but so far, AI hasn’t become a major income driver.

Canaan: The Miner That Ditched AI

While most miners are leaning into AI, Canaan, a China-based ASIC manufacturer, is pulling out. In July 2025, the company shut down its AI chip division, choosing instead to focus purely on Bitcoin mining hardware.

With only 2.1% market share in the ASIC space, Canaan’s move may seem risky—but in a sector chasing every trend, it’s a rare example of doubling down on the core business.