(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin miner Core Scientific Inc. rejected an unsolicited $1 billion buyout offer from artificial intelligence startup CoreWeave Inc., just days after the companies announced a partnership that , they estimate, would generate about $3.5 billion in revenue.
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The Austin, Texas-based company is one of the largest digital asset miners in terms of computing power and data center capacity that can be converted into high-performance computing facilities to power AI applications generative. CoreWeave, which has raised billions of dollars and is mulling an IPO, offered to acquire the miner with $5.75 per share in cash late Monday.
Shares of Core Scientific jumped 16% to $8.30 on Thursday. The stock has surged about 70% since the initial tender offer. The company emerged from bankruptcy protection in January.
The artificial intelligence boom has created an unprecedented shortage of data center space and graphics processing unit chips used in AI, as well as ready access to enough electricity to power it all . New facilities under construction are filling up quickly: around 83% of data center capacity under construction has already been rented in advance, with AI companies and cloud service providers driving the demand, according to a March report from commercial real estate firm CBRE. Band.
“The Board of Directors has determined that CoreWeave’s proposal significantly undervalues the Company and is not in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders,” Core Scientific said in a statement Thursday.
The mining company said it has identified approximately 500 megawatts of capacity for HPC operations, making Core Scientific one of the largest digital infrastructure providers even among traditional data centers.
The proposed acquisition follows a series of 12-year deals between the two companies, under which the miner will provide 200 megawatts of capacity to power graphics processing units owned by CoreWeave. Shares of Core Scientific soared 40% on Tuesday following the announcement.
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