Finance

Bitcoin Miners’ AI Gambit: How IREN and Cipher Mining Are Capitalizing on the AI Boom

IREN signed a $9.7B AI cloud deal with Microsoft, causing its stock to surge 21%.

byAndres Castro

November 3, 2025, 5:27 PM

Silhouette of a figure standing inside a dark cave, discovering a giant, glowing golden Bitcoin coin.

A visual metaphor for cryptocurrency mining, showing a figure finding a glowing Bitcoin. By MDL.

Executive Summary

IREN, a former Bitcoin mining firm, secured a $9.7 billion multi-year AI cloud contract with Microsoft to deploy Nvidia GB300 GPUs across 200MW of data centers, causing its stock to surge by nearly 21%.

This deal highlights a growing trend among Bitcoin mining companies, including Cipher Mining and TeraWulf, to pivot towards AI computing by leveraging their infrastructure for AI workloads, often through partnerships with major tech firms like Amazon Web Services and Google-backed Fluidstack.

The strategic shift by Bitcoin miners into AI infrastructure is leading to significant stock increases for these companies, with Cipher Mining’s stock rising 22% and TeraWulf’s by almost 17% following similar announcements and investments.

The Story So Far

Bitcoin mining companies, traditionally focused on crypto network transactions, are strategically leveraging their extensive computing infrastructure to meet the soaring global demand for AI compute power, marking a significant industry-wide pivot towards artificial intelligence cloud services.

Why This Matters

The significant pivot of former Bitcoin mining firms, such as IREN, Cipher, and TeraWulf, towards AI cloud services, marked by multi-billion-dollar contracts with tech giants like Microsoft and AWS, signals a fundamental reorientation of their business models. This strategic shift not only provides these companies with more stable and lucrative revenue streams, reducing their dependence on the volatile crypto market, but also plays a crucial role in meeting the insatiable global demand for AI computing power by repurposing existing infrastructure, thereby positioning them as key enablers in the burgeoning AI industry.

Who Thinks What?

Bitcoin mining firms like IREN, Cipher Mining, and TeraWulf are strategically leveraging their existing computing infrastructure to pivot into AI cloud services, viewing it as a validation of their capabilities and an opportunity to access new customer segments among global hyperscalers.

Major tech companies and hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google are actively partnering with and investing in these data center firms to secure significant compute power and capacity to meet the soaring demand for AI workloads.

IREN, formerly a Bitcoin mining firm, has secured a $9.7 billion AI cloud contract with Microsoft, marking a significant pivot towards artificial intelligence computing. The multi-year agreement, which includes a 20% prepayment and involves deploying Nvidia GB300 GPUs across 200MW of data centers, sent IREN’s stock soaring by nearly 21% in early Monday trading in New York.

Bitcoin Miners Shift to AI Infrastructure

The deal highlights a growing trend among Bitcoin mining companies to leverage their substantial computing infrastructure for the increasing demand in AI. IREN co-founder and CEO Daniel Roberts stated that the agreement not only validates IREN’s position in AI Cloud services but also opens access to new customer segments among global hyperscalers.

In a related development, Bitcoin miner Cipher Mining announced an approximately $5.5 billion, 15-year lease agreement with Amazon Web Services. This deal will see Cipher provide 300 MW of capacity for AI workloads by 2026, including both air and liquid cooling solutions, leading to a 22% rise in Cipher’s stock.

Broader Industry Trend

This shift isn’t isolated to IREN and Cipher. Top tech companies are actively partnering with data center firms to secure compute power amidst soaring AI demand. Cipher previously signed a 10-year, roughly $3 billion high-performance computing colocation agreement with Fluidstack, a company backed by Google.

Similarly, Bitcoin miner TeraWulf saw its stock surge by almost 17% after announcing plans to expand its AI compute power through an ongoing joint venture with Fluidstack. Google also increased its stake in TeraWulf, providing an additional $1.4 billion to support project-related debt financing, bringing its total investment to $3.2 billion.

Market Context

Bitcoin mining companies, traditionally focused on processing transactions on the crypto network, are repurposing their extensive computing capabilities to meet the needs of the AI sector. This strategic pivot comes as Bitcoin recently traded around $106,700, reflecting a 3.1% decline over the past 24 hours and more than 7% over the last week.