Anthropic has announced a landmark partnership with Google and Broadcom to develop 'multiple gigawatts' of next-generation TPU compute capacity, slated to come online starting in 2027. This commitment marks the company's most significant to date, as revenue growth has accelerated to a $30 billion annual run rate from $9 billion at the end of 2025. The scale of AI compute demand now directly competes with bitcoin mining for the same limited resources, including grid connections, land permits, cooling infrastructure, and affordable electricity.
According to a Cambridge tracker, bitcoin mining globally consumes roughly 13 to 25 gigawatts of continuous power, depending on hardware efficiency assumptions. Anthropic's securing of multiple gigawatts from a single deal, in addition to its existing capacity across AWS Trainium, Google TPUs, and Nvidia GPUs, highlights the rapid emergence of AI as a peer-level competitor for the same energy infrastructure that miners rely on.
Furthermore, the aggregate AI compute buildout has become one of the largest sources of new electricity demand in the United States, coinciding with the moment when bitcoin miners are deciding whether to mine bitcoin or rent their infrastructure to AI companies. This decision is increasingly favoring the latter, as evidenced by Core Scientific's conversion of significant mining capacity to AI hosting through a deal with CoreWeave, and the expansion of AI and high-performance computing revenue by Iris Energy and Hut 8.
The economic realities are also reflected in the actions of Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, and Genius Group, which disclosed selling over 19,000 BTC from their treasuries last week, indicating that mining economics alone are no longer sustaining operations at current prices and difficulty levels. A bitcoin miner operating a gigawatt of capacity earns revenue that fluctuates with bitcoin's price and network difficulty, whereas renting the same gigawatt to an AI company yields a contracted rate with predictable cash flows. At $69,000 bitcoin with difficulty at all-time highs and energy costs rising in tandem with other industrial consumers competing for the same grid capacity, the AI rental often provides better compensation. The revenue numbers behind the expansion are telling, with Anthropic stating that the number of business customers spending over $1 million annually on Claude has doubled from 500 to over 1,000 in less than two months.
While this does not signify the demise of bitcoin mining, the miners that survive the current cycle may evolve to resemble infrastructure companies that happen to mine bitcoin on the side, while renting their primary asset – affordable power at scale – to an AI industry that is struggling to build data centers quickly enough.