Bitcoin mining firms are driving a major buildout of U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, pivoting their business models to meet surging demand for high-performance computing.
Hut 8 secured a 15-year lease valued at $9.8 billion for its Beacon Point data center campus in Nueces County, Texas. The agreement provides 352 megawatts of IT capacity, expanding the company's ability to host intensive workloads for AI development.
IREN disclosed $2.8 billion in cloud services contracts with AI developers, according to an SEC filing. The company projects its AI cloud unit will generate more than $4 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026.
Companies that began as Bitcoin miners are increasingly marketing themselves as energy and compute providers—a shift that accelerated as Bitcoin mining profitability came under pressure.
The scale of AI data center spending is evident in commitments from major tech players. Amazon Web Services spent $96.5 billion on data center capital expenditures in 2025 and budgeted $200 billion for such investments in 2026.
The infrastructure boom now extends beyond chipmakers and hyperscale cloud providers to power companies, cooling specialists, networking firms, real estate developers and utility companies.
The announcements prompted a rally across related technology stocks. Shares of IREN, Hut 8, Cipher Digital, CleanSpark and MARA Holdings each rose at least 11 percent following the news.
The TEM AI Infrastructure Growth Index, which tracks 20 companies in the sector, gained 1.4 percent Monday and is up more than 12 percent over the past week.
The technology sector saw a wider rebound, with the Nasdaq Composite Index adding 0.9 percent during midday trading. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed 2 percent after declining the prior week.
IREN's contracted cloud services give the company a recurring revenue base, offering a more stable financial footing as it makes large capital outlays to expand computing capacity.
