A run they continued into the new year in 2025 was a big winner for shares of bitcoin mining companies that have switched business plans to cater to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, which were large winners.
And if big tech’s earnings this year are any indications, they might continue to reap the benefit of the pivot.
The tech giants Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) released Wednesday evening’s fourth-quarter results and 2026 outlooks – both of which put AI investment at the center of their growth plans for this year and beyond suggest no slowdown in the AI spending binge.
And, as for Microsoft, we are just in the early stages of AI diffusion and already have a larger AI business than some of our largest franchises.’ Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said ‘We were only at the very beginning phases of this kind of Diffusion (AI) that was built by Microsoft to be more large than many of us biggest franchisees on its own. “We are bringing the frontier across our entire AI stack to create new value for our customers and partners. Paraphrast.
Meta, meanwhile, forecast 2026 capital spending of $115-$135 billion, well ahead of consensus forecasts for $110 billion.
Read more: GPU Gold Rush: Why Bitcoin Miners Are Powering AI’s Expansion
Mining companies have opted to use their data centers for AI and cloud computing machines hosted by bitcoin’s last halving event, which cut miners’ rewards by half as well as higher competition and power costs. Hundreds of miners have been saved by the move as it has allowed them to diversify their income streams beyond mining bitcoin, which is still earning money from the continued hype surrounding AI.
In November, Iren (IREN) announced a multiyear cloud-services deal with Microsoft for AI workloads through advanced Nvidia (NVDA) chips, marking ‘deep shift into high-performance computing’. Similarly, Cipher Mining (CIFR) signed an agreement with Amazon (AMZN) to deliver 300 megawatts of capacity to Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the largest infrastructure commitments ever made by a bitcoin miner looking to tap into the AI boom.
AN IREN was 4 up 4. The results were a year-to-date gain of 47% and year over-year advance to $524%, with its annual increase of 527 per cent on Wednesday ahead of the results being 9%. Up 1 . CIFR has increased 17 per cent in 2026 and 322% year-over-year, up 17% on Wednesday (2%), a month-by-month period of.
Hut 8 (HUT) is up 26% year-to-date and 230% year over-year, a miner that has so far successfully pivoted to AI infrastructure and high performance computing.
The next test of the sustainability of AI- and cloud-computing-related optimism will be Nvidia’s next report on Feb. 25.
Read more: Bitcoin miners chase AI demand as Nvidia says Rubin is already in production
Thanks for reading Meta and Microsoft continue going big on AI Spending Heres how bitcoin miners could benefit
