coinengineer.io
Artificial intelligence (AI) companies’ endless need for energy makes Bitcoin miners attractive. Miami-based Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 (HUT) experienced a significant rise in its shares after receiving a $150 million investment from Coatue Management to build artificial intelligence infrastructures.
Coatue Management will invest in Hut 8 through convertible notes with an annual interest rate of 8% and a conversion rate of $16,395 per share. This investment caused Hut 8 shares to rise 4% on Monday morning. Many of the company’s competitors lost value with the decline of Bitcoin.
This investment has also had a positive impact on other Bitcoin mining-related data centers that offer artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) services. Soluna Holdings (SLNH) shares increased by approximately 17%, while Applied Digital (APLD) shares gained 10%.
Artificial intelligence and HPC companies are turning to the Bitcoin mining industry to meet their ever-increasing computing power needs. Miners usually already have the necessary computing capacity and agreements with energy suppliers. Energy demand from large-scale data centers and AI firms could usher in a new era of mergers and acquisitions with attractive energy deals for Bitcoin miners, JPMorgan said.
Most recently, cloud computing provider CoreWeave signed a 200 megawatt (MW) deal with miner Core Scientific (CORZ) for AI-related services and offered to acquire the company for more than $1 billion. Core Scientific rejected this offer on the grounds that the company was undervalued. Interestingly, Coatue Management is one of CoreWeave’s investors, highlighting its interest in redirecting Bitcoin miners’ existing infrastructure towards AI-related services.
Hut 8 reaffirmed this energy need in Monday’s press release. “Many traditional data center operators are unable to meet demand for AI computing capacity due to power shortages, long wait times to bring new capacity online, and the need to expand existing data centers to support the latest generation of high-density computing,” the company said. Hut 8 can help bridge this gap, he said.
This investment will increase the capacity of Hut 8 and similar Bitcoin mining companies to provide AI and HPC services and allow them to seize opportunities in this field.