Bitcoin miners spend 15 times more on AI infrastructure than they generate in revenue

Public Bitcoin miners are spending billions of dollars on infrastructure as they expand into artificial intelligence and high performance computing, highlighting the significant upfront investment required to diversify beyond Bitcoin mining.

Nine comparable miners spent $5.11 billion on capital assets during the first half of 2026 while generating $341.2 million in directly reported AI, HPC and colocation revenue, according to data from TheEnergyMag cited in a new report by BlocksBridge Consulting.

The roughly 15 to 1 ratio highlights the scale of investment currently required to build out those businesses, though it is not a measure of project profitability. 

Capital spending creates infrastructure expected to generate revenue over several years, while reported revenue reflects only capacity that has already been delivered and placed into service.

Across 12 public mining companies tracked by TheEnergyMag, net cash spending on capital assets reached $6.87 billion during the first half of 2026, already above the $6.50 billion spent throughout all of 2025.

The calculation includes cash purchases and deposits for hardware, property, equipment and other directly identified productive assets, while excluding finance lease principal and noncash equipment additions.

Including Applied Digital, CoreWeave and Nebius, a broader 15 company cohort spent $30.7 billion during their latest 2026 reporting periods, up 42.6% from the $21.53 billion recorded across all of 2025.

CoreWeave and Nebius accounted for almost three quarters of that total. CoreWeave spent $14.12 billion on property and equipment during the first half, while Nebius spent $8.13 billion on property, equipment and intangible assets.

Among miners and former miners, TeraWulf spent $1.61 billion, Applied Digital spent $1.58 billion, Core Scientific spent $1.18 billion and Cipher spent $911.5 million.

The spending reflects the cost of converting power and land assets into infrastructure capable of supporting AI workloads. Building AI ready capacity can require new substations, buildings, cooling systems, networking equipment and, in some cases, GPUs.

Revenue from those businesses is beginning to increase.

Across nine miners present in both quarterly revenue periods, directly reported AI, HPC and colocation revenue increased 52% to $205.8 million in the second quarter from $135.4 million in the first.

Core Scientific accounted for much of the increase, with colocation revenue rising to $136.7 million from $77.5 million. TeraWulf’s HPC leasing revenue increased to $31.9 million from $21 million, while Bitdeer’s AI Cloud revenue climbed to $14 million from $3.7 million.

The same pattern is visible among AI focused infrastructure companies, though their revenue bases are considerably larger.

CoreWeave generated $4.65 billion in first half revenue compared with $14.12 billion in capital spending. Nebius reported $981.3 million in first half revenue against $8.13 billion in net capital spending.