Core Scientific (CORZ) delivered strong Q2 FY26 results that exceeded revenue expectations despite missing earnings forecasts. The company reported total revenue of $164.2 million, beating analyst estimates of $135 million by nearly 22% year-over-year growth of 108.83% from $78.6 million in Q2 2025. However, the company posted a net loss of $0.06 per share, matching consensus estimates according to Koyfin data, representing a 3,220% deviation from analyst expectations. The earnings miss was primarily attributed to fair value changes in warrants rather than operational performance.
Data center operator Core Scientific (CORZ) announced a significant infrastructure partnership with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) anchored by 15-year leases for 529 megawatts of U.S. AI capacity. According to the company's quarterly filing, the capacity is expected to support AMD customer deployments beginning in 2027. The agreements give AMD, under certain conditions, the right to reserve another 1,925 MW through December 28, 2028, potentially expanding the partnership to roughly 2.5 gigawatts. As per Mathew Hein, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at AMD, the partnership expands access to critical infrastructure for customers deploying AMD AI solutions. The companies will collaborate on physical infrastructure design and deployment of AMD's Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs, and ROCm software, with AMD receiving market-priced warrants to purchase up to 30 million Core Scientific shares at $23.47 per share.
The company's colocation revenue surged to $136.7 million from $10.6 million in the prior year, representing the primary driver of total revenue growth. As of mid-July, billing was active for 437 MW of capacity, representing approximately $635 million in average annualized colocation GAAP revenue. Adam Sullivan, CEO of Core Scientific, noted that the company's execution capabilities align with AMD's technology roadmap. The company's gross profit reached $70.0 million with consolidated gross margins expanding to 43%, up from just 6% in the prior-year period, demonstrating successful pivot to high-density AI services. Additionally, Core Scientific announced it increased total leased customer power capacity to approximately 1.1 gigawatts, representing more than $24 billion in potential contracted revenue.
Core Scientific terminated an agreement to buy Block's (XYZ) bitcoin-mining chips and recorded a $41.9 million charge as a result. The 2024 agreement covered 3-nanometer chips representing roughly 15 EH/s of hashrate. In the second quarter, colocation generated $136.7 million, or 83% of its $164.2 million in revenue, while self-mining revenue fell 66% to $21.5 million. The company held 848 BTC worth $49.7 million on June 30, up from 547 BTC three months earlier, and sold 2,385 BTC for $208.2 million in the first quarter. The AMD agreement places Core Scientific among several publicly traded Bitcoin miners pursuing AI infrastructure contracts, with limited access to large sites with substantial power connections making miners' existing facilities attractive to cloud providers and AI developers.
Core Scientific shares initially rallied more than 5% in premarket trading following the AMD partnership announcement, but reversed direction after the opening bell and fell more than 4% as a broader equity market sell-off weighed on trading. The company's capital expenditures totaled $797.5 million in Q2 2026, reflecting accelerated infrastructure investment as it scales toward the 2.5 GW AMD partnership. Core Scientific also strengthened its financial position with liquidity increasing to $1.82 billion from $1.04 billion, supported in part by $4.28 billion of debt issuance. The partnership addresses surging demand for electricity, land and data center facilities as cloud providers and enterprises ramp up AI infrastructure investments, with Core Scientific positioning itself as a key player in the expanding AI data center market. The companies did not disclose expected revenue, construction spending, deployment stages, or a timetable for bringing the full 2.5 GW online, with investors weighing the agreement's long-term capacity against near-term execution costs.
