Nine public Bitcoin miners spent $5.11 billion on capital assets during the first half of 2026 while reporting only $341.2 million in artificial intelligence and high performance computing revenue, according to an August 20 analysis from BlocksBridge Consulting. This creates a fifteen-to-one spending-to-revenue ratio overall, demonstrating how much infrastructure miners are building before their newer operations reach full commercial capacity. The comparison includes purchases and allocations involving hardware, property, equipment and other productive assets, with some spending continuing to support Bitcoin mining operations.
AI and HPC revenue reached $205.8 million in the second quarter, representing a 52% increase from the preceding quarter collectively. Core Scientific emerged as a standout performer, reporting $136.7 million in second quarter colocation revenue, up from $77.5 million in the previous quarter, while capital expenditure reached $797.5 million during the same period. The company is billing customers for 437 megawatts of capacity by mid-July and announced agreements with AMD covering approximately 530 megawatts across five sites, with contracts carrying more than $14 billion in potential base revenue over 15 years.
Mining facilities offer access to land, electricity and grid connections, but these assets do not automatically meet the technical requirements of AI customers. As reported by BlocksBridge, converting those assets into AI-ready capacity requires substations, buildings, cooling systems, networking equipment and, in some business models, GPUs. These projects also require financing before tenants begin paying for capacity, with construction schedules, power availability and customer concentration affecting investment recovery timelines.
The broader group of 15 miners and AI data center companies spent $30.7 billion on capital assets during their latest 2026 reporting periods, representing a 42.6% increase above the $21.53 billion recorded across all of 2025. TeraWulf has moved further toward recurring data center income, with HPC revenue overtaking Bitcoin mining revenue during the first quarter of 2026, while HIVE's HPC revenue increased 94% to $19.5 million during its 2026 financial year. Other miners are financing the transition through asset sales, with MARA Holdings selling $1.5 billion of Bitcoin during the first quarter.
The transition has reached investment products, with CoinShares renaming WGMI as the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining and Digital Power ETF and expanding its eligible investment universe to cover Bitcoin miners, data center operators, AI semiconductor companies, power producers and advanced computing businesses. The actively managed fund now covers 29 holdings and approximately $225.6 million in assets as of August 18, with WGMI required to invest at least 80% of its net assets in qualifying companies and not holding Bitcoin directly or through derivatives.
