Bitcoin mining facilities are poised to become crucial players in artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to Morgan Stanley.
The bank said it has begun to see “large compute/data center deals” and expects 2026 to mark “a surge in demand for compute, escalating ‘time to power’ deal velocity, and a potential step change in LLM intelligence.”
In its latest research, Morgan Stanley argued that Bitcoin miners are in a prime position to repurpose their assets.
“We provide more depth around our assessment of the opportunity for Bitcoin miners to repurpose their sites to host HPC data centers,” the analysts wrote.
The report noted that U.S. Bitcoin players collectively control about 6.3 gigawatts of large operational sites, with a further 2.5 GW under construction and 8.6 GW in development.
Morgan Stanley said, “We continue to believe that Bitcoin sites offer AI players the fastest time to power with the lowest execution risk, and believe this will increasingly be valued/recognized.”
The analysts highlighted that many mining stocks still trade at low enterprise value per watt multiples, even as demand for data center power accelerates.
Conversion transactions already completed suggest significant upside potential, with valuations in some cases sharply below peers.
The bank’s model points to a 45 GW power bottleneck for data centers through 2028, even under optimistic assumptions about natural gas, nuclear and other time-to-power solutions. Repurposed Bitcoin sites could help close that gap.
Morgan Stanley concluded that the mathematics of Bitcoin-to-data center conversion are “not well understood,” but said the economics could ultimately support long-term infrastructure investment structures such as REITs.
