TeraWulf and Hut 8 — Why mining companies are raking in tens of billions of dollars from AI

The global crypto community is buzzing lately thanks to the spectacular transformation of Bitcoin mining companies! Mining firms that once rose and fell with the price of Bitcoin have reinvented themselves as the most reliable partners for AI companies. Big Tech firms, struggling with power shortages, are pouring massive, record-breaking contracts into these miners to secure the power and data center infrastructure they’ve already staked out.

TeraWulf's $19 billion mega-deal with Anthropic

The first to capture the market's attention is TeraWulf. They’ve signed a 20-year long-term data center lease agreement with the renowned AI company Anthropic.

The deal alone is worth a staggering $19 billion (approximately 25 trillion KRW)! TeraWulf plans to provide large-scale power infrastructure in stages from its campus in Kentucky.

What's interesting is how serious TeraWulf is about this: they're going all-in on AI infrastructure expansion, even selling off their stake in a Texas mining business. They’ve effectively transformed from a simple mining operation into a partner at the heart of Big Tech.

Hut 8's $9.8 billion Texas project

Not long after TeraWulf's massive news, another mining giant, Hut 8, also announced an unprecedented, top-tier contract!

Hut 8 secured a 15-year, $9.8 billion (approximately 13 trillion KRW) infrastructure lease agreement at their 'Beacon Point' campus in Texas. Thanks to this incredible deal, the Texas campus has already sold out its secured power capacity, officially establishing itself as a massive 1-gigawatt AI data center complex.

There’s one more interesting point here. This project aims to build a high-performance AI data center using NVIDIA's latest 'DSX Reference Architecture.' The infrastructure once used to mine Bitcoin is now turning into a cutting-edge AI hub, running the world's hottest NVIDIA chips!

Why is Big Tech coveting mining companies' power grids?

The reason is simple. As AI technology advances, training and running these models requires an unimaginable amount of power. However, building new power plants and connecting to transmission grids usually takes years. For Big Tech firms that need to secure the market as quickly as possible, every second counts.

On the flip side, Bitcoin miners already have the transmission grid contracts and infrastructure perfectly secured to draw massive amounts of power. For Big Tech, they've found a 'power cheat code' that drastically cuts down on time and costs.

There were concerns in some corners of the market about whether demand for AI data centers might be cooling down, but these massive deals have blown those worries away. It’s clear that the power infrastructure staked out by mining companies is one of the most valuable assets of the AI era.

The revival of mining stocks: What to watch for

With such huge tailwinds, the market is in celebration mode—the WGMI mining ETF even jumped over 10% in a single day! People are increasingly calling for miners to be re-evaluated not just as Bitcoin miners, but as core infrastructure partners for the AI era. Let's keep a close watch to see if they can catch both the traditional mining business and the AI data center wave, changing the paradigm along the way!