Analysis: US Bitcoin miners are turning to AI business, and power capacity is expected to double in one to two years

Houston technology company Lancium and Denver Crusoe Energy Systems announced a multi-billion dollar agreement on Thursday to build a 200-megawatt data center outside Abilene, Texas, designed to "meet the unique needs of artificial intelligence companies." This is the first phase of a 1.2-gigawatt construction plan.

Ali Fenn, president of Lancium, said in an interview that this will be one of the world's largest artificial intelligence data center parks, showing the accelerated competitive trend of such companies shifting from Bitcoin mining to artificial intelligence business.

Needham analysts estimate that in the next one to two years, including mining and high-performance computing business expansion plans, the power capacity of large listed Bitcoin miners is expected to more than double.

The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that by 2030, data center electricity consumption will account for 9% of total U.S. electricity consumption, up from about 4% in 2023. Some industry insiders believe that the use of nuclear energy may meet this demand.

TeraWulf uses nuclear energy to power its mining farms and is looking to enter the machine learning space. So far, the company has 2 megawatts of high-performance computing capacity and plans to shift its energy infrastructure to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC). (CNBC)