Analysis: US Bitcoin mining companies are turning to AI business, and power capacity is expected to double in one to two years

Houston technology company Lancium and Denver-based Crusoe Energy Systems announced a multibillion-dollar agreement on Thursday to build a 200-megawatt data center outside Abilene, Texas, designed to "meet the unique needs of artificial intelligence companies." This is the first phase of a 1.2-gigawatt construction plan. Lancium President Ali Fenn said in an interview that this will be one of the world's largest artificial intelligence data center parks, showing the acceleration of the competitive trend of such companies shifting from bitcoin mining to artificial intelligence businesses. Needham analysts estimate that in the next one to two years, including mining and high-performance computing business expansion plans, the power capacity of large listed bitcoin mining companies is expected to more than double. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that by 2030, data centers will account for 9% of total U.S. electricity consumption, up from about 4% in 2023. Some industry insiders believe that using nuclear energy may meet this demand. TeraWulf uses nuclear energy to power its mines and is looking to enter the field of machine learning. So far, the company has 2 MW of HPC capacity and plans to shift its energy infrastructure toward AI and high-performance computing (HPC). (CNBC)