MARA Sees Bitcoin Mining Assets as a Fast Track to AI Data Center Growth

MARA Sees Bitcoin Mining Assets as a Fast Track to AI Data Center Growth Written by MarketBeat September 14, 2026 Key Points Bitcoin miners are leveraging existing power, land and infrastructure to expand into AI data centers, colocation and cloud services. MARA views these assets as a fast track for hyperscalers and AI companies seeking additional computing capacity. AI data-center development requires far greater capital than Bitcoin mining, with direct-liquid-cooled construction costs rising to approximately $10 million–$10.5 million per megawatt . Labor, transformers, switchgear, financing and regulatory approvals remain major constraints. Companies are pursuing large AI infrastructure deals, but executives warned that speculative power requests could exceed realistic demand. MARA is working with Starwood to reduce construction risk and expects to sign two leases by year-end while evaluating both large campuses and smaller inference-focused sites. Executives from Bitcoin mining and digital infrastructure companies said access to energized power, land and data-center development capabilities is creating an opportunity to serve growing artificial intelligence infrastructure demand, while also presenting significant construction, financing and regulatory challenges. Speaking at an H.C. Wainwright panel moderated by Mike Colonnese, the companies described how Bitcoin miners are seeking to repurpose or complement mining operations with AI high-performance computing, colocation and cloud-service deployments. Colonnese said the companies represented on the panel have line of sight to more than 14 gigawatts of power capacity. Bitcoin Mining Assets as an AI Infrastructure Advantage CleanSpark Inks a $6.6B AI Lease to Become a Digital Landlord Fred Thiel, chairman and CEO of MARA NASDAQ: MARA , said Bitcoin miners historically focused on acquiring low-cost power and deploying computing equipment as efficiently as possible. In contrast, AI data centers require substantially more capital per megawatt but can generate higher revenue and asset values per megawatt. “Bitcoin miners have a lot of land and power that is turned on,” Thiel said, calling those assets a potentially fast route for hyperscalers, frontier-model providers and neocloud companies seeking to bring AI computing capacity online. Game On: Wall Street's New Rules and Your Money Russell Cann, co-founder and chief development officer of Core Scientific, said the company’s early AI deployments demonstrated the changing technical and cost requirements of the market. He said an air-cooled site was converted in roughly 45 days to support higher-density racks running H100 and H200 graphics processing units. However, direct-liquid-cooled facilities generally required new construction rather than conversion of legacy air-cooled data centers. Cann said estimated direct-liquid-cooled construction costs increased from about $4.5 million per megawatt in late 2023 to approximately $10 million to $10.5 million per megawatt for sites turned on during the current year. He cited labor, transformers and switchgear as major constraints. Colocation and Cloud Strategies Panelists described different approaches to monetizing AI infrastructure. Sam Tabar, CEO of WhiteFiber, said the company operates both cloud and colocation businesses, which require separate technical capabilities. WhiteFiber was spun out from Bit Digital as a pure-play AI infrastructure company, he said, in part to broaden financing opportunities and attract institutional shareholders that may not have wanted crypto exposure. Tabar said WhiteFiber acquired Enovum to add an experienced data-center development team. He cited projects including the conversion of a mattress factor...