CoreWeave takes a second shot at Core Scientific acquisition

Last year’s $1 billion offer was a non-starter. Now, with AI demand surging and Bitcoin mining margins tightening, CoreWeave has circled back and is reportedly in new talks to acquire Core Scientific.

On June 26, the Wall Street Journal reported that CoreWeave, the AI cloud infrastructure provider backed by Nvidia and powering clients like OpenAI and Microsoft, has reopened negotiations to acquire Bitcoin miner Core Scientific.

The move comes nearly a year after Core Scientific’s board dismissed CoreWeave’s initial $5.75-per-share offer ($1 billion total) as “significantly undervaluing” the company. This time, the terms remain undisclosed, but the market’s reaction was immediate: Core Scientific’s stock surged 28%, pushing its valuation close to $4 billion.

People familiar with the matter say the latest negotiations follow a string of multi-year infrastructure deals between the two companies, including a major contract for 200 megawatts of power to support CoreWeave’s high-performance computing services.

Can the second bid stick this time?

CoreWeave’s renewed pursuit of Core Scientific appears to be about securing the infrastructure needed to win the AI race.

The AI cloud provider, fresh off a $1.5 billion IPO and partnerships with Microsoft and OpenAI, is locked in a battle for computing power with rivals like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Unlike those giants, CoreWeave doesn’t own massive data center networks. That’s where Core Scientific comes in.

Core Scientific controls something even more valuable than raw computing power: energy infrastructure. The Bitcoin miner’s facilities, mostly located near cheap, abundant power sources, are already wired for high-density computing, making them ideal for AI workloads.

The existing 200-megawatt deal between the two companies, signed last year, was just the start. Owning Core Scientific outright would give CoreWeave direct control over power contracts, bypassing the scramble for data center capacity that’s bottlenecking AI expansion.

What’s in for Core Scientific?

For Core Scientific, the timing couldn’t be more strategic. The company emerged from bankruptcy in early 2024 with a leaner operation and a stronger balance sheet, but Bitcoin’s halving in April slashed mining rewards, squeezing margins across the industry.

While some miners are selling off assets or pivoting to AI hosting piecemeal, Core Scientific’s management has held out for a bigger play. Their first-quarter profit of $580 million, largely driven by Bitcoin’s price rebound and efficient operations, proved they’re no longer a distressed asset. Now, they’re a strategic one.

Whether the deal closes or collapses, the return of CoreWeave to the negotiating table underscores a broader realignment in digital infrastructure. The boundary between Bitcoin mining and AI compute is thinning, not because the technologies are converging, but because they share the same scarce foundation: power.

In that light, Core Scientific’s real value may not be its mining rigs, but the grid connections beneath them.