CoreWeave Expanded Its Core Scientific AI Contract to 500 Megawatts

CoreWeave exercised its final infrastructure option with Core Scientific on October 22, 2024, adding approximately 120 megawatts of critical information-technology load to a growing series of artificial-intelligence hosting agreements.

Core Scientific, a major publicly traded bitcoin miner, said the new 12-year contract could produce approximately $2 billion of additional cumulative revenue. Combined with its earlier CoreWeave agreements, the company projected potential cumulative revenue of $8.7 billion across the initial 12-year contract terms.

The development mattered beyond one corporate contract. It showed how electrical capacity and data centers assembled for bitcoin mining were becoming strategically valuable to AI operators seeking sites capable of supporting power-intensive graphics processors. It also gave Core Scientific a large source of prospective dollar-denominated hosting revenue while bitcoin mining remained its principal revenue business.

What CoreWeave contracted

Core Scientific said it would modify infrastructure at one existing site to deliver the additional 120 megawatts for CoreWeave’s Nvidia graphics processors. “Critical IT load” measured electricity delivered to servers, storage, network switches and related computing systems. It excluded supporting equipment such as chillers and air conditioning.

Construction associated with the option was expected to begin during the second half of 2025, with operations anticipated during the second half of 2026. Those dates were management expectations on October 22, not completed milestones.

The option followed approximately 382 megawatts of previously announced CoreWeave hosting capacity. Because the figures were approximate, Core Scientific described the combined commitment as about 500 megawatts of critical IT load rather than presenting the rounded components as an exact total.

Across six sites, that 500-megawatt computing load was expected to require approximately 700 megawatts of gross infrastructure after supporting systems were included. Core Scientific reported 1.2 gigawatts of contracted power and said the remaining approximately 500 megawatts was allocated to its bitcoin-mining business.

The $8.7 billion figure was a projection

The headline revenue number was neither cash received on October 22 nor an unconditional contract value. Core Scientific characterized it as potential cumulative revenue across the initial 12-year terms of all its CoreWeave agreements.

The calculation was stated before capital-expenditure credits owed to CoreWeave. CoreWeave was to fund the required site modifications, while an estimated $180 million associated with the newly announced infrastructure would be credited against hosting payments. Those credits could consume no more than 50% of monthly hosting fees until repaid. The company also said the broader capex-credit structure was capped at $1.5 million per megawatt.

The latest option included two possible five-year renewals, but the $8.7 billion projection covered the initial 12-year terms. It did not assume that either extension would be exercised.

Why bitcoin miners were moving toward AI

Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving had reduced the block subsidy available to miners, intensifying pressure to secure efficient equipment and inexpensive electricity. At the same time, AI developers were competing for grid connections, cooling systems and large powered facilities that could take years to construct from scratch.

Core Scientific’s October 22 announcement illustrated the resulting institutional trade-off. The company could continue operating bitcoin miners on part of its power portfolio while converting other facilities into contracted hosting infrastructure for a single large AI customer. That offered prospective revenue diversification, but also introduced construction, execution and customer-concentration risks.

The verified event was the exercise of a contract option and the company’s resulting capacity plan. It did not establish that all modifications would finish on schedule, that every projected dollar would be earned, or that AI hosting would ultimately outperform bitcoin mining. No bitcoin-price reaction is attributed to the announcement because the reviewed records did not isolate the contract’s effect from other market drivers on October 22.