Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Surges After AI Deal, Report of Over $1B Buyout

Bitcoin miner Core Scientific’s (CORZ) shares surged as much as 40% in pre-market trading after cloud computing firm CoreWeave signed a 200 megawatts (MW) artificial intelligence (AI) deal and was also reported to have offered to buy the mining company in an all-cash offer.

CoreWeave said to have made the offer on Monday, implying a 55% premium to the miners’ three-month average weighted share price as of May 31, Bloomberg reported citing a person familiar with the matter.

The offer would value the Austin, Texas-based miner at just over $1 billion, based on 178 million shares outstanding. Core Scientific emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year after it became one of the victims of a brutal crypto winter.

CoreWeave and Core Scientific didn’t immediately respond to comments on the story.

The cloud computing company also signed a 12-year deal with the miner to host AI-related services. CoreWeave said it will provide about $300 million of capital investments, with options to expand the capacity further, according to a press release.

The deal comes after mergers and acquisitions are heating up in the mining sector. Most recently, another large bitcoin miner, Riot Platforms (RIOT), made a hostile offer to buy out peer Bitfarms (BITF).

CoreWeave raised $1.1 billion in new funding in May with investors, including Coatue Management and Magnetar Capital.