Bitcoin miners are finding a new source of revenue in artificial intelligence (AI). As AI companies strive to enhance their products, their demand for cheap, abundant energy has surged. This has proven profitable for Bitcoin miners, who have started to replace some of their mining equipment with rigs used to run and train AI systems.
These miners believe that AI training could offer a safer and more consistent revenue source than the volatile cryptocurrency industry. This shift has been well-received by investors, leading to a 22% increase in the market cap of 14 major Bitcoin mining companies since the beginning of June.
Historically, Bitcoin miners used specialized ASICs chips, such as the Antminer S19 Pro, that are designed for SHA-256 hashing (Secure Hash Algorithm). They are excellent at mining bitcoin but lousy for doing anything else. They can’t be repurposed. However, the infrastructure that the companies have already built – cooling systems, security, access to cheap energy – can be used for an expansion into AI.
This transition reflects several trends of the moment: the roaring hype cycle of AI; the dwindling access to power, and a tenuous bitcoin mining landscape following the bitcoin halving. The AI boom has led to an enormous demand for energy. Generative AI models like ChatGPT improve through the brute computational might of data centers, which process massive data sets to find patterns and improve responses. But computing power is expensive, and for years, wasn’t a worthwhile investment for many data center operators.
This leaves AI companies on the hunt for direct access to inexpensive power sources, large tracts of land to hold warehouses filled with thousands of computers, and resources like water or giant fans to cool their machines. Their ravenous activity means it’s becoming increasingly competitive to find sites that meet those criteria, especially in North America. Some jurisdictions have implemented long waitlists for large data centers to connect to the grid. And once companies get initial approval, building a data center from scratch can take years, millions of dollars, and necessitate lengthy slogs through regulation and bureaucracy.
Read more: time.com
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