March 13 News: As the demand for artificial intelligence computing power continues to rise, the electricity infrastructure built by Bitcoin miners over the years is once again attracting Wall Street’s attention. Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Asset Research at VanEck, recently stated that the market has not fully reflected the potential value of mining companies in AI data center infrastructure, which actually already possess the key resources most needed by AI enterprises.
In an interview with CNBC, Sigel pointed out that the land, power contracts, cooling systems, and grid access relationships controlled by Bitcoin mining companies have a clear advantage in the current AI infrastructure race. In contrast, new data centers often take years to gain grid access, with some projects even queued until after 2028 to complete connection.
Despite owning these resources, the valuation of Bitcoin mining companies remains significantly lower than that of traditional data center operators. Sigel believes this gap mainly stems from the market’s insufficient understanding of the potential for miners to transition into AI computing infrastructure or lingering caution about their business model shifts.
In fact, this transformation has already begun to take shape. Public data shows that several listed mining companies plan to significantly expand their power capacity in the coming years, aiming to increase total computing capacity from about 7 gigawatts to 20 gigawatts by 2027. Meanwhile, some mining farms are gradually transforming into AI data center parks.
For example, MARA announced in February this year that it reached an agreement to convert some of its mining facilities into large-scale data centers. Core Scientific recently secured up to $1 billion in financing from Morgan Stanley to promote AI infrastructure development. CleanSpark stated in the first quarter of 2026 that, under the current computing power price environment, the return on AI business has already surpassed that of traditional Bitcoin mining.
This trend is also beginning to be reflected in network hash rate data. Statistics show that the global Bitcoin network hash rate has decreased by about 6% from its peak in November 2025, partly due to miners redeploying equipment to AI-related computing tasks.
However, not all mining companies are choosing to reduce their mining operations. Bitdeer is still expanding its hash rate deployment, planning to install about 50,000 of its self-developed ASIC miners on a 413 MW grid capacity, which is expected to add approximately 33 EH/s to the network and generate about $335 million in Bitcoin at current prices.
In addition to computing power and data center hosting, the value of mining farms in grid regulation is also beginning to be recognized. Since miners can quickly shut down or resume operations based on grid demand, some energy markets now view mining farms as flexible load regulation tools. Industry insiders expect that by 2030, the global power demand of AI data centers will grow at an annual rate of about 24%, and the energy infrastructure of mining farms may play an important role in this trend.
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