Bitcoin miners are shifting their focus to artificial-intelligence infrastructure as the latest halving cuts into their core revenue, according to a new report from Bernstein. The research firm notes that miners collectively control about 27 gigawatts of power capacity—a resource now being redirected to meet growing demand for AI compute. It's a pivot that could reshape the mining landscape and change how the sector is valued.
Why the halving changed the math
The April 2026 halving slashed the block reward in half, squeezing miners who rely on bitcoin-denominated revenue. With power and hardware costs fixed, many operations saw margins shrink overnight. Rather than simply buying more efficient rigs, larger players are now looking at their existing energy contracts and asking a different question: can this power do something else?
Bernstein's analysis points out that miners already own the grid connections and the physical sites. That gives them a head start in a market where new AI data centers can take years to build. The firm calls the 27 GW of controlled capacity a strategic asset in the race for AI compute.
What the shift looks like on the ground
Miners aren't abandoning bitcoin—they're adding a second revenue stream. Some are partitioning their facilities, running bitcoin ASICs on one side and GPU clusters for AI training on the other. Others are converting entire sites into colocation spaces for cloud providers.
The timing is tight. AI infrastructure demand has surged since late 2025, and lead times for new substations and transformers stretch well into 2027. Miners who already have the power are in a position to move faster than traditional data-center developers.
The power numbers
Twenty-seven gigawatts is a lot of electricity—roughly the output of 27 nuclear reactors. Bernstein estimates that even a fraction of that capacity, redirected to AI workloads, could generate more stable, dollar-denominated revenue than bitcoin mining alone. The report doesn't name specific miners, but the implication is clear: the firms that can pivot fastest will come out ahead.
The next few months will show how real the pivot is. Some miners have already announced pilot AI projects; others are still weighing the capital costs. The key metric to watch isn't hash rate anymore—it's how much of that 27 GW gets booked for AI compute by the end of 2026.
