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.

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…

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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.