Anyone who notices public Bitcoin mines markets will know that artificial intelligence (AI) and business turns to High Performance Compute (HPC) are all the furious among Bitcoin mine workers. What started as a gradual trend last year has suddenly become a business strategy that many leading public Bitcoin mining workers are exploring.

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Core Scientific, Bit Digital, HUT 8, HIVE and IREN currently have revenue-generating AI/HPC business lines, while Crusoe Energy and Lancium, Cipher, Terawulf, Riot and BitFarms are in the development or exploration phase. With Softbank, Openai and others who gathered up to $ 500 billion to speed up AI development in the US through the Stargate project announced in January, leaving the digital oil speed that is pure-play-bitcoin miner workers?

Kevin Dede, a CEO of equity research at Investment Bank HC Wainwright, believes there is plenty of room for both. In a recent episode of Mining Pods Bitcoin share exhibition, Dede expressed that although he would not aim for miners who are serious with AI/HPC, he would also not underestimate the prospects of Pure-Play Bitcoin mine workers.

Does the launch of the Project Stargate change the conversation on AI swivel to Bitcoin mine workers?

I think the conversation changed when Core Scientific announced the Coreweave deal six to eight months ago. It really changed the dynamics. Another thing that people may not consider is that Bitcoin mining workers can compete in different scales. Project Stargate is about hyperscale facilities, but there are options for smaller scale implementations.

Bitdigital and Applied Digital have shown that you do not need hyperscale to succeed. There are many customers who want access to calculation and not all of them are hyperscalers.

Riot recently decided to put his 600-Megawatt Corsicana Phase 2 to evaluate it for AI/HPC. Why do you think they did it?

Riot has had activist investors to buy stock, which is great for the stock price. The company has always been firmly sticking to Bitcoin Mining. At their analyst meeting last June last year Jason Les said they would not do HPC.

Riot’s Corsicana facility is great. The question is: Is 600 MW HPC worth more than 600 MW Bitcoin mining? I think the answer is yes. The demand for HPC is growing and the applications are evolving; We just scrape the surface. The real market is the business market where companies use AI to optimize production.

Do you look at bit digital and core scientific, which company’s strategy do you think have the most upside?

Let’s start with bitdigital. They bought GPUs and rented a place in northern Iceland to meet the needs of a customer who I believe is based somewhere in Europe to run models. Now Iceland and Europe are not as close as you might think, which is important if they are running inference, calculating Sinctainland Europe would be the primary customer for it.

The Enovum agreement came through and they secured their first page, which is about four megawatts. They have also just opened another place that they hope to have gained energy this summer, with the aim of five megawatts originally with plans to scale up to 35 megawatts in HPC capacity this year. Sam Tapar, their CEO, often points out that this acquisition opened the door to a potential 288 megawatt HPC capacity.

When it comes to assessing the risk, it really comes down to a number of factors. Bit Digital acquired a company with a documented track record for building and operating these sites. But of course it adds another layer of risk beyond the baseline execution risk. You put on the risk that they can stumble during the construction and operation of their next set of facilities as the year progresses.

As for core scientific, I would be the last person to underestimate them. They have led to some really impressive talent. I asked their CEO, Adam Sullivan, about how all their plans come together. He said there are many people in the existing data center world whose employees see limited growth lanes. So if you are an employee of one of these companies and you get an offer from core scientific with stock options, you think, “My current options are priced in double digits, but this can go to high double digits or even triple digits. “This is how they have been able to attract such great talent.

On the other hand, these new B200 chips they use are so much more powerful, but also significantly more complex, and this can play into delays for Coreweave’s implementation in Core Scientific’s places. I think much of it will come out in Core Scientific’s next earnings call in March. They are likely to address whether they are still on the field to give energy to the first major Coreweave plant in the second quarter and how they have tackled these network challenges.

Do you think the larger upside of AI/HPC is pushing Bitcoin mining to the fringes, or can it exist with HPC and AI?

I don’t think Bitcoin Mining disappears. The concept of a Hybrid AI-Bitcoin Mining Data Center is interesting. HPC power consumption is not as consistent as people might assume. It does not run 24/7/365. It depends on what happens – are they running a new model? Do they support inferencies? These power loads fluctuate.

It’s not too hard to imagine a host who has flexibility in their power purchase agreements (PPAs) to run Bitcoin mining workers when the power is not needed for HPC. It’s just a matter of adjusting the load.

When you step back, it seems that there is room for both. We’ve talked about Corsicana, but there are plenty of other places like those in West Texas. Mike Novogratz will transform Helios into an HPC center, but it is in the middle of nowhere. You need a private flight to get there and it’s a long drive from Lubbock. It is also on wind power, so the energy is cheap, but how are you going to run inference from this place?

What is really interesting when you look at business models is the opportunity. From the hybrid perspective you have transparency. You can predict HPC income and take on some debt amount based on these margins. But if you also keep Bitcoin mining running, you have the opportunity to take advantage of an increasing Bitcoin price and improve market dynamics.

I think the opportunity is an option that some of these newer HPC-focused companies offer investors. You have the stable HPC current and then you have the potential upside of Bitcoin that hits $ 200,000 this year. That’s the exciting suggestion. For that reason, I think many of these companies with experience in both will continue to do both.