OpenAI’s $280B compute build-out is repricing Bitcoin miners’ power assets

OpenAI anticipates that it will use about $278 billion in cash from 2026 to 2030 and spend about $856 billion on computing infrastructure. In this context, the expansion of artificial intelligence is not merely about securing sufficient semiconductors, but also securing electricity, land, power lines, and existing sites that are already connected to the grid. These are assets many Bitcoin miners have already been developing for many years.

As AI demand grows, those mining sites are becoming more valuable. AI is not only competing with miners for electricity; it is also pushing up the value of the power infrastructure they already control.

The bottleneck moved from silicon to the substation

The expansion of OpenAI illustrates the rapid growth in demand for AI systems. The company’s Stargate project was launched in January 2025 and aimed to install 10GW worth of AI infrastructure in the US by 2029. OpenAI announced in April that it had surpassed its original goal, adding 3GW in the last 90 days.

It takes more than the mere deployment of servers to develop that capacity. According to OpenAI, in addition to machines, other factors that have to be taken into consideration include having enough energy at hand, land where to build, permits to work, transmission lines, workers, and construction partners. In January, OpenAI, along with SoftBank, invested $500 million in SB Energy and chose to work with it for its 1.2 GW data center to be built in Milam County, Texas.

According to Gartner, global electricity use by data centers will amount to 565 TWh in 2026, which is a 26% increase compared to 2025. Gartner also estimates that servers optimized for AI will represent about 31% of the figure. IEA forecasts that consumption will double, to almost 945 TWh by 2030, and points out that grid limitations might delay up to 20% of intended projects. VanEck highlights that electricity, and not chips, is becoming the main limiting factor. CoinShares, on the other hand, points to “land, power and shell” as limiting factors for AI deployment.

Why a permitted megawatt now outvalues a mining rig

According to CoinShares, its recent acquisition of three leased AI facilities in Northern Virginia, worth $3.5 billion, has valued stabilized infrastructure at about $27 million per MW. Some of the registered miners with energized but not leased capacity are traded at a value of $3 million per MW.

Grid access explains the difference in valuation. According to CoinShares, the interconnection queue in the US is around 2,600 GW, which demonstrates the difficulties in getting new grid connections. There are also some regions where the regulations for building data centers have become tighter. New York imposed the first state prohibition in July against construction of new hyperscale data centers. For miners that already have live sites, the new constraints make their existing connections more valuable due to the long waiting time for new projects to be able to access the grid.

Miners are winding down hashing to keep the megawatts

CoinShares found companies with contracted AI or HPC capacity trading at an average of 12.9 times enterprise value to next-12-month sales, versus 3.7 times for continuing miners without contracts. S&P Global has also tracked listed miners shifting capacity from Bitcoin toward AI and HPC.

That valuation gap is changing capital allocation. Core Scientific paid $41.9 million to cancel about 15 EH/s of next-generation mining equipment. Keel, formerly Bitfarms, stopped mining on June 29 and is expected to report no mining revenue in Q3. Cipher Digital is likely to exit mining by the end of 2027, while IREN plans to complete its transition by December 31, 2026.

Conversion is a capital project, not a switch

CoinShares estimates that upgrading mining infrastructure for AI costs about $8 million to $15 million per MW, compared with $0.7 million to $1 million per MW for mining infrastructure.

The AI premium is still partly prospective. More than $100 billion of disclosed AI/HPC backlog supports only around $1.1 billion of annualized revenue, with about 550MW billing against more than 4GW contracted. The biggest gains should therefore go to operators that can finance retrofits, secure tenants and bring capacity online on schedule.

Crusoe is the template already running

As Cryptopolitan previously reported, Crusoe began by using otherwise-flared natural gas to power modular Bitcoin-mining data centers, then sold its mining business to NYDIG in 2025 as it shifted toward AI infrastructure. It now reports more than $140 billion in contracted value and 6GW of gross contracted capacity. Robinhood Ventures Fund I invested about $25 million in Crusoe’s $3.9 billion Series F, valuing the company at $30.9 billion post-money. Infrastructure built around stranded energy and Bitcoin mining is now being repriced for a market where access to megawatts can matter as much as access to GPUs.

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