Tight US power grid is pushing up Bitcoin BTC$111,480.33 Wall Street broker Bernstein said miners and AI developers are working closely together.
A surge in demand from AI and digital workloads has made grid access one of the biggest constraints to new data center growth, with interconnection timelines stretching as far as seven years in some regions, the broker said in a report Friday.
The miner, which signed large renewable power contracts several years ago, now controls more than 14 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, offering AI providers a shortcut to scale, analysts led by Gautam Chughani wrote.
The site, owned by IREN (IREN) and Riot Platforms (RIOT), could reduce deployment time by up to 75% compared to greenfield projects, analysts wrote.
The sector is riding on broad momentum. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft expects the data center shortage to last until 2026 as demand for cloud and AI outpaces infrastructure construction. The surge in demand for high-performance computing is fueling optimism that Bitcoin miners can leverage by expanding into AI and data center operations.
Because Bitcoin facilities already operate at high power densities and have advanced cooling systems, they can be retrofitted for high-performance AI workloads much faster and cheaper than building new, Bernstein said.
The broker calls miners a “strategic enabler” for building AI and named IREN a top pick with an Outperform rating and $75 price target.
IREN rose 5.7% to around $67.50 in early trading on Friday.
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