Technology companies’ race for energy butts up against bitcoin firms
28 August 2024 - 14:43
byLaila Kearney and Mrinalika Roy
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A group of buildings housing cryptocurrency miners is seen in the foreground of a power-generating station at the Scrubgrass Plant in Kennerdell, Pennsylvania, US, in this file photograph. Picture: REUTERS/ALAN FREED
US technology companies are pursuing energy assets held by bitcoin miners as they race to secure a shrinking supply of electricity for their rapidly expanding artificial intelligence and cloud computing data centres.
The data centres are driving the fastest US power demand growth since the start of the millennium, outpacing grid expansions and leaving giant technology companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, to scavenge for vast amounts of electricity.
The electricity scramble is jolting the energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining industry. Some miners are making huge profits leasing or selling their power-connected infrastructure and sites to tech, while others are losing access to the electricity needed to stay in business.
“The AI battle for dominance is a battle being had by the biggest and best capitalised companies in the world and they care like their lives depend on it that they win,” said Greg Beard, CEO of Stronghold Digital Mining, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company. “Do they care about what they pay for power? Probably not.”
Data centres could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the US by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, as technology companies pour funds into expanding their computing hubs, the Electric Power Research Institute said in May.
Data centres account for about 1%-1.3% of global electricity consumption, vs crypto mining’s about 0.4%, according to the International Energy Agency. That disparity is expected to grow. Analysts expect 20% of bitcoin miner power capacity to pivot to AI by the end of 2027. Over the past year, bitcoin miners and AI data centre owners have increasingly vied for the same power assets and contracts, executives from more than half-dozen publicly traded US crypto mining companies said.
Bought centre
Marathon Digital Holdings, the world’s biggest publicly traded bitcoin miner, was among those eyeing a nuclear-powered data centre owned by Talen Energy in Pennsylvania, two sources familiar with the situation said.
“We are always willing to talk with anyone who is looking to sell a data centre,” Marathon said, without confirming specific interest in the site. Amazon, with a market capitalisation of more than 350 times the size of Marathon, bought the centre in a deal announced in March and secured enough electricity to power nearly all the homes in New Mexico.
Many large miners that own land and power hookups are shifting strategies from exclusively crypto mining to marketing their property and energy services to AI and cloud computing businesses.
“We’ve received a lot of interest from everyone from an Amazon or Google,” said Kerri Langlais, chief strategy officer of bitcoin miner TeraWulf, which has a site in upstate New York that is capable of up to 770MW.
The frenzy of tech prospects for miners kicked off in June, when crypto miner Core Scientific — fresh out of bankruptcy — became the first to announce a major agreement to lease its power-connected facilities to Nvidia-backed CoreWeave in deals estimated at more than $6.7bn over 12 years.
Several miners have since said they would lease, or act as subcontractors to develop AI data centres. New data centres, which have typically been about 20MW, are being built up to 1,000MW now.
Not seamless
But wait times to connect new power supplies in the US can take several years. For crypto miners with large energy assets, repurposing their operations for AI and cloud computing could make their facilities as much as five times more valuable, Morgan Stanley research shows. Buying or leasing space at a miner with at least 100MW of capacity can cut the wait times for a data centre to launch by about 3.5 years, saving technology companies billions, Morgan Stanley said.
Still, the handoff of electricity supplies and infrastructure to tech companies from crypto miners will not be seamless for most, if at all possible, several miners said.
“Most bitcoin miners that are … saying they are going to do AI don’t really know what they’re getting into,” said CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford, adding his company would stick with crypto mining as its core business. About 90% of the country’s bitcoin mines can be constructed in six to 12 months, vs three years for a more sophisticated data centre, Bradford said.
Those mines, he added, would have to be rebuilt to incorporate specialised cooling structures and other infrastructure to be used for AI or cloud computing. The high costs of building AI data centres would be a barrier to many crypto miners, who were largely barred from accessing capital after a 2022 bitcoin price crash, said Sergii Gerasymovych, CEO of EZ Blockchain, which supplies equipment and services for crypto mining.
This year, EZ Blockchain had a 10MW project in the works with a South Carolina utility until the utility contracted for 100MW with a hyperscaling AI company.
Hyperscalers include the world’s biggest technology companies that operate huge global networks of data centres and cloud infrastructure.
While the financial details of the AI data centre deal were unclear, Gerasymovych said the company he was up against had billions of dollar of capital to play with.
“For them, it’s about speed to market and they’re just throwing money about,” he said. “What is there to compete with?”
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
AI-driven power scramble jolts US crypto miners
Technology companies’ race for energy butts up against bitcoin firms
US technology companies are pursuing energy assets held by bitcoin miners as they race to secure a shrinking supply of electricity for their rapidly expanding artificial intelligence and cloud computing data centres.
The data centres are driving the fastest US power demand growth since the start of the millennium, outpacing grid expansions and leaving giant technology companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, to scavenge for vast amounts of electricity.
The electricity scramble is jolting the energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining industry. Some miners are making huge profits leasing or selling their power-connected infrastructure and sites to tech, while others are losing access to the electricity needed to stay in business.
“The AI battle for dominance is a battle being had by the biggest and best capitalised companies in the world and they care like their lives depend on it that they win,” said Greg Beard, CEO of Stronghold Digital Mining, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company. “Do they care about what they pay for power? Probably not.”
Data centres could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the US by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, as technology companies pour funds into expanding their computing hubs, the Electric Power Research Institute said in May.
Data centres account for about 1%-1.3% of global electricity consumption, vs crypto mining’s about 0.4%, according to the International Energy Agency. That disparity is expected to grow. Analysts expect 20% of bitcoin miner power capacity to pivot to AI by the end of 2027. Over the past year, bitcoin miners and AI data centre owners have increasingly vied for the same power assets and contracts, executives from more than half-dozen publicly traded US crypto mining companies said.
Bought centre
Marathon Digital Holdings, the world’s biggest publicly traded bitcoin miner, was among those eyeing a nuclear-powered data centre owned by Talen Energy in Pennsylvania, two sources familiar with the situation said.
“We are always willing to talk with anyone who is looking to sell a data centre,” Marathon said, without confirming specific interest in the site. Amazon, with a market capitalisation of more than 350 times the size of Marathon, bought the centre in a deal announced in March and secured enough electricity to power nearly all the homes in New Mexico.
Many large miners that own land and power hookups are shifting strategies from exclusively crypto mining to marketing their property and energy services to AI and cloud computing businesses.
“We’ve received a lot of interest from everyone from an Amazon or Google,” said Kerri Langlais, chief strategy officer of bitcoin miner TeraWulf, which has a site in upstate New York that is capable of up to 770MW.
The frenzy of tech prospects for miners kicked off in June, when crypto miner Core Scientific — fresh out of bankruptcy — became the first to announce a major agreement to lease its power-connected facilities to Nvidia-backed CoreWeave in deals estimated at more than $6.7bn over 12 years.
Several miners have since said they would lease, or act as subcontractors to develop AI data centres. New data centres, which have typically been about 20MW, are being built up to 1,000MW now.
Not seamless
But wait times to connect new power supplies in the US can take several years. For crypto miners with large energy assets, repurposing their operations for AI and cloud computing could make their facilities as much as five times more valuable, Morgan Stanley research shows. Buying or leasing space at a miner with at least 100MW of capacity can cut the wait times for a data centre to launch by about 3.5 years, saving technology companies billions, Morgan Stanley said.
Still, the handoff of electricity supplies and infrastructure to tech companies from crypto miners will not be seamless for most, if at all possible, several miners said.
“Most bitcoin miners that are … saying they are going to do AI don’t really know what they’re getting into,” said CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford, adding his company would stick with crypto mining as its core business. About 90% of the country’s bitcoin mines can be constructed in six to 12 months, vs three years for a more sophisticated data centre, Bradford said.
Those mines, he added, would have to be rebuilt to incorporate specialised cooling structures and other infrastructure to be used for AI or cloud computing. The high costs of building AI data centres would be a barrier to many crypto miners, who were largely barred from accessing capital after a 2022 bitcoin price crash, said Sergii Gerasymovych, CEO of EZ Blockchain, which supplies equipment and services for crypto mining.
This year, EZ Blockchain had a 10MW project in the works with a South Carolina utility until the utility contracted for 100MW with a hyperscaling AI company.
Hyperscalers include the world’s biggest technology companies that operate huge global networks of data centres and cloud infrastructure.
While the financial details of the AI data centre deal were unclear, Gerasymovych said the company he was up against had billions of dollar of capital to play with.
“For them, it’s about speed to market and they’re just throwing money about,” he said. “What is there to compete with?”
Reuters
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