As Bitcoin mining grows more competitive and challenging, industry leaders are looking to cash in on AI data centers—but it’s no easy feat. 

At the Mining Disrupt conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this week, leading miners said navigating the shift to AI requires skill and care. 

“In the long-term, [AI] is a big trend,” Paul Li, CEO of mining technology provider Fog Hashing, said during a talk. “We cannot miss that. You [miners] need to go far this year, as the demand for compute power AI compute is huge.”

In recent months, following the last halving which cut mining rewards in half, and amid a crypto markets slump, Bitcoin miners have been trying to slim down their costs. 

Bitcoin miners had already been eyeing AI for some time. Both industries use huge amounts of energy—and are constantly on the prowl to get it cheap. Bitcoin was recently trading at about $87,202, roughly flat over the past 24 hours, although it is well off its record high above $108,000 set in January, according to data provider CoinGecko.

When Bitcoin’s price falls and minting new digital coins isn’t generating enough revenue, some miners have pivoted their infrastructure to address AI demand. 

As they are familiar with running data cent...