US data center construction spending hit $68B, up 46% YoY. Bitcoin miners shift to AI infrastructure, signing multi-billion-dollar leases. Core Scientific, IREN, Hut 8 lead pivot. What the Census data means for crypto and infrastructure.
Data center construction spending hit an annualized $68 billion in the latest US Census Bureau report, up 46% from a year earlier. The buildout is driven by AI compute demand that has turned empty plots of land into prime real estate.
Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are at the center of the shift. IREN, Hut 8, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and Cipher Mining are signing multi-billion-dollar lease agreements with hyperscalers, converting mining sites into AI data centers. Instead of running ASICs around the clock, they repurpose power infrastructure for transformer model training.
Microsoft and Meta have increased data center lease commitments to support AI expansion. Microsoft, with an Alpha Score of 72, has been one of the largest lessees. Its core competency – securing large-scale power in favorable jurisdictions – turns out to be the exact bottleneck hyperscalers face when trying to deploy AI infrastructure quickly.
The shift has three concrete effects for crypto markets. Revenue diversification reduces miners' dependence on Bitcoin's price. A company like Core Scientific, which emerged from bankruptcy to become an AI infrastructure player, trades on a fundamentally different thesis than a pure-play miner. Second, if miners find it more profitable to lease facilities for AI workloads than to mine Bitcoin, hashrate could migrate away from the network. Third, as facilities transition, displaced mining hardware may flood the secondary market, pushing down costs for remaining miners.
The broader nonresidential construction landscape has been mixed. Office and retail spending remain flat. Data center spending has accelerated since January 2024, with monthly annualized rates consistently above $45 billion. The 46% year-over-year growth has held for six consecutive months, Census data show.
For investors tracking the pivot, IREN and Hut 8 are among the names with the most exposure to AI lease revenue. Both have seen their Alpha Scores reflect the transition – IREN at 30 (Weak) and Hut 8 at 62 (Moderate) – as the market prices in execution risk alongside the opportunity.
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