Bitcoin miners pour billions into AI as capex outpaces revenue 15-to-1
Public Bitcoin miners are spending heavily to expand into AI and high-performance computing, but revenue from those businesses is still far behind. BlocksBridge Consulting found 15 miners and AI data-center firms spent $30.7 billion on capital assets in their latest 2026 reporting periods, 42.6% more than all of 2025. Among nine comparable Bitcoin miners, first-half 2026 capex reached $5.11 billion, while directly reported AI and HPC revenue was only $341.2 million, about a 15:1 spending-to-revenue ratio. Even so, AI and HPC income is growing fast: those nine miners posted $205.8 million in Q2, up 52% from the prior quarter, with gains from Core Scientific, TeraWulf, and Bitdeer. The shift requires major upfront investment in substations, buildings, cooling, networking, and sometimes GPUs. The trend is reshaping the sector, and CoinShares has even broadened its mining ETF to include data centers, AI chips, power, and HPC.
