Who Owns the Stack: From Bitcoin to AI, the Race for Power Is Going Off-Grid

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful The Energy Mag. The archetypal nonfiction tin beryllium viewed here. The Energy Mag (formerly The Miner Mag) provides news, data, and insights connected the energy–compute–markets nexus.

In the first installment of this series, we explored a foundational idea: Bitcoin mining was ne'er conscionable astir integer currency. It was designed arsenic a semipermanent vigor strategy moving connected a proviso docket that extends implicit much than a century.

In the second installment, we examined however that strategy is not unsocial to Bitcoin. Modern AI information centers are built connected the aforesaid carnal foundation—chips, power, cooling, and infrastructure—all moving unneurotic to crook energy into Bitcoin mining and AI processing astatine scale.

The AI roar has accrued request exponentially, requiring cutting-edge infrastructure and high-efficiency exertion to enactment grid resilience, yet reshaping however the integer aboriginal is built.

Across the exertion sector, developers are progressively moving beyond accepted grid reliance, securing energy much straight done dedicated vigor assets. This “bring your ain power” attack whitethorn consciousness caller to AI, but it is simply a playbook Bitcoin miners person been refining for years.

This benignant of vertical integration has go a defining diagnostic of the Bitcoin mining industry. As companies person undertaken enlargement into caller markets, including the United States, they person worked to place existing infrastructure. However, this question of enlargement has not stopped astatine information centers—it extends into powerfulness itself, arsenic operators question to amended reliability, sustainability, and affordability of the vigor proviso done nonstop ownership and partnerships with vigor companies.

This 3rd installment builds connected that evolution. If Bitcoin mining and AI information centers stock the aforesaid underlying system, the adjacent question is however companies presumption themselves wrong it. What emerges is simply a spectrum of concern models—ranging from outsourcing to afloat vertical integration.

The much of this stack a institution controls, the much capital-intensive it is and the much it influences its costs, performance, and ultimately, its returns.

But it is important to enactment that this stack is not static—and neither are the companies operating wrong it.

As Bitcoin mining and AI information centers standard connected the aforesaid underlying infrastructure, the enactment betwixt their concern models is opening to blur. The 2 seemingly chiseled industries are progressively becoming 1 shared system, with stakeholders moving crossed it successful existent time.

The Entry Point: Asset-Light Deployment

At the astir basal level, information successful some Bitcoin mining and AI computing begins with deploying hardware.

In Bitcoin mining, this means owning ASIC machines—specialized chips designed to execute a azygous task—and placing them into facilities operated by others to make Bitcoin. In AI computing, the equivalent is deploying GPUs into information centers, wherever they are utilized to bid models and tally workloads for customers.

In some cases, companies ain the machines—but not the infrastructure.

That infrastructure is provided by colocation operators, which proviso power, cooling, and carnal abstraction to tally compute astatine scale. Historically, this has been viewed arsenic a supporting function. Increasingly, it is becoming 1 of the astir important parts of the business.

Colocation is nary longer conscionable astir hosting machines—it is astir monetizing powerfulness and infrastructure.

Across Bitcoin mining, this exemplary has agelong been embedded successful the industry. Companies similar ABTC person deployed miners hosted done genitor infrastructure operators specified arsenic Hut 8 (NASDAQ: HUT), portion others, specified arsenic Cango, run fleets hosted successful facilities managed by Bitmain. In each case, the separation betwixt hardware ownership and infrastructure cognition defines the concern model.

That aforesaid operation is present emerging successful AI.

Companies similar Fluidstack are deploying GPU clusters done partnerships with infrastructure providers including Cipher and TeraWulf, leveraging existing power-connected sites to service AI workloads without owning the underlying facilities. Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR) is actively processing AI colocation capableness astatine scale, including a planned 180 MW installation successful Tydal, Norway that is presently successful negotiations with a imaginable tenant.

As AI request accelerates and powerfulness becomes the limiting factor, infrastructure with existing grid entree is becoming progressively valuable. Many sites primitively built for Bitcoin mining are present well-positioned to enactment AI workloads, and implicit time, a increasing stock of these facilities—particularly crossed the U.S. and Europe—are expected to modulation toward AI and high-performance computing applications.

In that sense, colocation is nary longer conscionable the introduction constituent to the stack.

It is becoming a span betwixt 2 industries—connecting energy, infrastructure, and compute request successful a single, evolving system.

Controlling Infrastructure

As companies determination up the stack, the adjacent measurement is owning the carnal situation itself.

At this stage, companies are nary longer conscionable deploying hardware. Instead of relying connected third-party hosting, operators physique oregon get their ain facilities, including information centers, substations, and cooling systems.

This displacement changes operations significantly. Infrastructure ownership allows operators to power powerfulness costs, optimize performance, and trim dependency connected outer providers.

But increasingly, the worth of infrastructure is not conscionable successful the buildings—it is successful the powerfulness connections attached to them.

That dynamic is present playing retired crossed concern assets that were erstwhile considered obsolete, allowing for companies to crook underutilized facilities into almighty engines for growth

Companies similar Alcoa person begun exploring the merchantability of idled aluminum smelter sites to integer plus firms specified arsenic NYDIG, portion Century Aluminum has sold a Kentucky installation to TeraWulf, which is present pivoting toward AI and high-performance computing.

Many of these sites faced shutdown owed to the gradual offshoring of high-paying manufacture jobs to different countries. But they stock 1 captious feature: they are already connected to the vigor grid astatine scale.

That interconnection—often the hardest and slowest portion of gathering caller infrastructure—has abruptly go a invaluable plus successful its ain right.

As a result, facilities primitively built for dense manufacture are uncovering a 2nd beingness arsenic compute infrastructure, repurposed to enactment Bitcoin mining and AI workloads alike. This is bringing captious method roles backmost to the United States, rebuilding cardinal infrastructure, and accelerating the state arsenic a planetary person successful exertion and innovation.

In this environment, owning infrastructure is nary longer conscionable astir controlling operations. It is astir securing entree to vigor systems that tin grip expanding request portion supporting wide resilience.

Bring Your Own Power

But adjacent that excavation of grid-connected infrastructure is limited.

The fig of concern sites with existing high-capacity interconnections is finite, and overmuch of it has already been identified oregon repurposed by large industries. As user request for computing accelerates—particularly from AI—the standard of powerfulness required necessitates solutions to support grid resilience portion deploying caller technological solutions.

In different words, the constraint is nary longer conscionable wherever infrastructure exists. It is whether the vigor grid itself tin support up. That unit is present forcing a broader shift.

Across large powerfulness markets, operators are confronting a caller reality: connecting ample loads to the grid is becoming much analyzable and progressively uncertain. Consequently, regulators are opening to revisit however ample vigor users are integrated into the system.

In regions similar PJM and ERCOT, grid operators person already started to set their frameworks successful effect to surging request from information centers and different high-load users. New rules and proposals are emerging to govern however large-load information centers link to the grid, however costs are allocated, and however reliability is maintained amid rapidly increasing demand.

To code these challenges, a increasing fig of operators are moving beyond the grid altogether.

A wide illustration of this attack tin beryllium seen successful the concern betwixt Amazon and Talen Energy, wherever information halfway infrastructure is being developed alongside atomic procreation capacity. While AWS does not ain the powerfulness plus outright, the operation efficaciously aligns compute with a dedicated vigor supply—mirroring the aforesaid rule that has agelong underpinned Bitcoin mining operations.

In Bitcoin mining, this has agelong included co-locating with underutilized vigor sources. Companies similar New West Data flare gas from lipid accumulation sites and usage that powerfulness to energize Bitcoin miners for other currency flow. In 2020, Greenidge Generation became what was known arsenic the archetypal powerfulness works to straight enactment successful bitcoin mining, reviving an plus that would person been unopen down owed to its deficiency of competitiveness successful the powerfulness market.

In AI computing, a akin exemplary is emerging. Data halfway developers are progressively partnering with—or straight gathering alongside—power procreation assets, including earthy gas, nuclear, and astir importantly, renewable energy.

This “bring your ain power” exemplary transforms energy from a outgo halfway into a strategical advantage. It allows operators to stabilize pricing, guarantee availability, and align compute capableness with vigor supply.

In Bitcoin mining, this improvement has been unfolding for years and is lone growing.

A wide illustration is Bitfarms. The institution historically operated arsenic a self-mining business, owning infrastructure and deploying its ain computational power. But with the acquisition of Stronghold, Bitfarms moved upstream into powerfulness generation, gaining nonstop power implicit vigor assets. It aboriginal rebranded to Keel Infrastructure, signaling a broader modulation distant from axenic Bitcoin mining toward a exemplary that tin enactment AI and high-performance computing workloads.

In effect, Bitcoin companies are gathering the expertise to powerfulness the request basal for the technologies of the future, including AI.

Full Vertical Integration

For immoderate operators, adjacent taking ownership of powerfulness is not the last step.

At the highest extremity of the spectrum, companies tin power astir each constituent of the compute system: powerfulness generation, infrastructure, hardware deployment, and adjacent spot design.

In AI computing, hyperscalers (like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google) are opening to determination successful the aforesaid direction—developing customized chips, securing semipermanent vigor supply, and gathering large-scale information halfway campuses tailored to their workloads. In Bitcoin mining, this exemplary is nary longer theoretical. It is already taking shape.

Canaan, the earliest Bitcoin ASIC designers with its Avalon brand, has expanded beyond hardware into operating its ain mining infrastructure. In caller years, it has scaled proprietary computing powerfulness by deploying its ain machines crossed sites it controls straight oregon done associated ventures. Earlier this year, Canaan deepened that strategy by acquiring Cipher Digital’s 49% stake successful the Texas associated ventures with WindHQ, a upwind electrical powerfulness generator, moving its vulnerability further upstream successful the stack.

A akin trajectory tin beryllium seen with Bitdeer. Originally focused connected unreality mining and proprietary operations, the institution has steadily expanded its power implicit infrastructure, scaling its exclusive computing powerfulness to astir 70 EH/s. It has besides moved into powerfulness generation, including the acquisition of onshore and a licence for a 101 MW permitted works successful Canada, further integrating vigor into its operating model.

At the aforesaid time, Bitdeer is extending horizontally into AI processing. The institution has begun deploying its ain GPU infrastructure for AI unreality services portion exploring high-performance computing colocation opportunities with tenants.

This dual expansion—up the stack into powerfulness and crossed into AI workloads—illustrates however the boundaries betwixt Bitcoin mining and information halfway infrastructure are opening to dissolve. At this level, the nonsubjective is nary longer conscionable efficiency. It is access.

By operationalizing each furniture of the stack, operators tin optimize show end-to-end, trim vulnerability to outer constraints, and specify their ain capableness limits.

While fewer companies afloat inhabit this presumption today, the absorption of question is clear. The person operators determination toward afloat integration, the much they alteration from users of cardinal vigor and integer infrastructure into builders of it.

Same Stack, Different Positions

What emerges from this examination is not a communicative of 2 abstracted industries, but of 1 shared strategy with aggregate points of participation.

Bitcoin mining and AI information centers disagree successful their workloads and customers. But structurally, they run on the aforesaid continuum of ownership—from asset-light deployment to infrastructure ownership, to securing powerfulness directly, and yet to afloat vertical integration.

More importantly, those positions are not fixed. Companies are perpetually repositioning themselves—moving up the stack to summation control, oregon crossed it to seizure caller sources of user demand. These dynamics person strengthened the Bitcoin-AI coexistence approach: unafraid a sizable powerfulness declaration and instantly monetize it with proprietary bitcoin mining powerfulness portion seamlessly retrofitting the infrastructure for higher-margin AI computing colocation.

Bitcoin miners, by necessity, began solving these problems early, and AI companies are present arriving astatine the aforesaid conclusions. The cardinal quality is nary longer the strategy itself, but however each institution chooses to navigate.

In the adjacent installment, we volition instrumentality this 1 measurement further: How these models are opening to converge—and what that means for the aboriginal of energy, compute, and capital.

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful The Energy Mag. The archetypal nonfiction tin beryllium viewed here. The Energy Mag (formerly The Miner Mag) provides news, data, and insights connected the energy–compute–markets nexus.