Core Scientific has struck a major artificial intelligence infrastructure agreement with AMD, marking a further step in the bitcoin miner's pivot away from its original crypto-mining business. Under the deal, Core Scientific will provide AMD with 529 megawatts of US-based AI infrastructure capacity through 15-year leases, generating base contracted revenue potential of more than $14 billion, with deployment set to begin in 2027.
AMD also secured the right to reserve an additional 1,925 megawatts of capacity through December 28, 2028, an option that could expand the total partnership to roughly 2.5 gigawatts if fully exercised. Of the initial capacity, AMD is directly leasing 377 megawatts across sites in Pecos and Hunt County, Texas, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, while a further 152 megawatts in Auburn, Alabama, and Dalton, Georgia, will go to a third-party cloud provider under an arrangement supported by AMD.
A technology tie-up beyond just power
The agreement extends past real estate and electricity. Core Scientific and AMD plan to collaborate on data-center design and will deploy AMD's Instinct graphics processing units, EPYC processors and ROCm software across the leased facilities. As part of the arrangement, AMD received warrants to purchase up to 30 million shares of Core Scientific at a strike price of $23.47 per share, with 6.5 million shares vesting immediately upon signing the initial leases and additional tranches vesting as more capacity gets contracted.
The AMD agreement adds to a leased-capacity portfolio that now totals approximately 1.1 gigawatts across Core Scientific's customer base, with potential contracted revenue exceeding $24 billion. As of mid-July, the company had 437 megawatts of capacity actively billing, generating annualized colocation revenue of roughly $635 million. In its second quarter, Core Scientific reported total revenue of $164.2 million, with colocation contributing $136.7 million, or 83% of the total, while self-mining revenue fell 66% to $21.5 million as the legacy bitcoin business continued to shrink.
Exiting the bitcoin mining chapter
The AI expansion comes alongside the formal winding-down of Core Scientific's bitcoin mining ambitions. The company terminated its 2024 agreement with Block to deploy 3-nanometer mining chips representing approximately 15 exahash per second of hashrate, paying a termination charge of $41.9 million to exit the contract. Core Scientific's bitcoin holdings stood at 848 BTC, valued at $49.7 million, as of June 30, down from 547 BTC three months earlier after fluctuations tied to mining output and treasury decisions; the company had also sold 2,385 BTC for $208.2 million earlier in the first quarter.
Market reaction
Shares of Core Scientific (CORZ) rose 5.6% in pre-market trading following the announcement, while AMD shares fell 4% over the same period. The divergence underscores how investors are increasingly pricing miners like Core Scientific on their AI infrastructure potential rather than their shrinking bitcoin production, even as the underlying capital commitments carry execution risk for both companies over the coming years.
