Anthropic has announced a landmark partnership with Google and Broadcom, securing multiple gigawatts of next-generation computing capacity starting in 2027, marking its largest commitment to date as the company's revenue growth accelerates to a $30 billion annual rate from $9 billion at the end of 2025. The scale of AI computing 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 consumes approximately 13 to 25 gigawatts of continuous power globally, depending on hardware efficiency. Anthropic's acquisition of multiple gigawatts through this deal, in addition to its existing capacity across AWS Trainium, Google TPUs, and Nvidia GPUs, demonstrates the rapid rise of AI as a major competitor for the same energy infrastructure that miners rely on.
Other companies, such as OpenAI, are also expanding their infrastructure portfolios, resulting in a massive buildout of AI computing capacity that represents one of the largest new sources of electricity demand in the United States. This development coincides with bitcoin miners deciding whether to mine bitcoin or rent their infrastructure to AI companies, with many opting for the latter due to more predictable cash flows. For instance, Core Scientific has converted a significant portion of its mining capacity to AI hosting, while Iris Energy and Hut 8 have expanded their AI and high-performance computing revenue. The revenue numbers behind this expansion are telling, with Anthropic reporting that the number of business customers spending over $1 million annually on its services has doubled in less than two months.
While this shift does not signify the demise of bitcoin mining, the industry's survivors may evolve to resemble infrastructure companies that mine bitcoin while renting their primary asset, affordable power at scale, to the rapidly growing AI industry.