Who can immediately supply power to AI? The underrated "value" of Bitcoin mining companies
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The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is triggering an unprecedented demand for electricity, while the supply that can immediately meet this demand is extremely limited.
According to Wind Chaser Trading Desk, citing a Morgan Stanley research report on the 21st, between 2025 and 2028, the United States alone faces a data center power shortfall of up to 45 gigawatts (GW). Even considering other innovative solutions such as natural gas and nuclear energy, the shortfall still exists.
Unlike new projects that take years to connect to the grid, bitcoin mining companies have ready-made, grid-connected large sites and power capacity. The report points out that U.S. bitcoin miners hold about 6.3 GW of operational large sites, with an additional 2.5 GW under construction, making them the "fastest access to power and lowest execution risk" option for AI companies.
Currently, many bitcoin miners' stock valuations are still based on the mining logic, with extremely low "enterprise value per watt" (EV/Watt) metrics. According to the report's calculations, transforming mining sites into data centers can create equity value of $5–8 per watt, far higher than these companies' current trading levels. For investors, this could represent a significant value mismatch and potential alpha opportunity.
Imminent Power Bottleneck
AI's demand for computing power is growing exponentially, but behind this lies a hard constraint of electricity. Morgan Stanley's model shows that, between 2025 and 2028, U.S. data centers are expected to require 65 GW of power. However, the current grid can only provide 15 GW of near-term connection capacity, and, combined with about 6 GW of data centers under construction, an enormous gap of around 45 GW remains.
The report analyzes that even if all innovative measures—such as natural gas turbine transactions (about 15–20 GW), Bloom Energy's fuel cells (about 5–8 GW), and using existing nuclear power plants (about 5–15 GW)—are taken into account and executed smoothly, by 2028, U.S. data center developers will still face a power shortage of about 5–15 GW. A recent Schneider Electric survey also confirms this challenge, noting that "obtaining power" has become the primary cause of data center project delays.
Undervalued "Electricity Spot": The Unique Value of Bitcoin Mining Farms
With the electric power bottleneck, bitcoin mining farms provide an unexpectedly logical solution. Morgan Stanley points out that these mining sites possess the core assets most valued by AI players: approved grid connections and large-scale power supply capacity. This enables them to bypass the time-consuming "large load interconnection" approval process required to build new data centers.
Data shows that U.S. bitcoin mining companies own about 6.3 GW of operational large (over 100 MW) sites, another 2.5 GW under construction, and 8.6 GW of development projects with grid connection approval. The report suggests that these ready power resources are extremely valuable to AI companies; transforming these sites into AI data centers has a construction cycle of about 18–24 months, which perfectly matches the timeline from development to power infrastructure completion of bitcoin mining sites.
Morgan Stanley emphasizes that "enterprise value per watt" (EV/Watt) is a key indicator undervalued by the market when assessing such companies. Many bitcoin mining companies are still significantly undervalued.
The economic value created from transforming bitcoin mining farms into HPC data centers is remarkable. Morgan Stanley performed a value creation analysis model: suppose a bitcoin miner rebuilds a 100 MW site into a "powered shell" data center (excluding chips and servers), then leases it long-term to clients.
Analysis shows that if the tenant is a large cloud service provider (Hyperscaler), the project could create about $519 million in equity value, i.e. $5.19 per watt. If the tenant is an emerging cloud service provider (Neocloud), the equity value created would be higher, about $781 million, i.e. $7.81 per watt. The report notes that this value creation potential of about $5–8 per watt is far higher than the trading levels of many bitcoin mining stocks. This transaction structure usually adopts project financing, has high leverage, and avoids the business risks of holding the chips themselves, making it attractive for all parties.
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The above content is from Wind Chaser Trading Desk.
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