Core Scientific — Business Overview

What does Core Scientific do?

Core Scientific designs, builds, and operates large-scale data centers focused on power-intensive computing. Originally built around bitcoin mining, the company is now pivoting hard toward renting out its infrastructure to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) customers. As of December 31, 2025, it owned or leased ten data centers across seven U.S. states, with about 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of gross utility power capacity — enough to power a mid-sized city.

The company runs three business segments:

In 2025, bitcoin self-mining still generated the majority of revenue, but the company expects colocation to become the dominant revenue source as new capacity comes online in 2026 and beyond.

How does Core Scientific make money?

The colocation business earns revenue through long-term, take-or-pay contracts. Customers — typically large AI infrastructure operators — sign agreements (often 10+ years) committing to pay for reserved power capacity whether they use it or not. Payments include fixed charges based on electrical capacity and variable charges based on actual usage. The company's anchor customer is CoreWeave, with whom it has contracted approximately 590 megawatts (MW) of leased power capacity. Under these wholesale colocation agreements, Core Scientific provides the building, power, and cooling; customers bring their own servers and manage their own hardware.

The bitcoin mining business earns revenue by solving cryptographic puzzles on the Bitcoin network. Every time miners successfully validate a block of transactions, they receive bitcoin as a reward. Profitability depends on the price of bitcoin relative to the cost of running miners — primarily electricity and hardware costs. As of December 31, 2025, the company operated about 151,400 miners generating 15.7 exahash per second (EH/s) for its own account, plus 2.2 EH/s for hosted customers.

What market does Core Scientific operate in?

Core Scientific competes in the wholesale data center colocation market, which is being turbocharged by AI demand. Traditional enterprise data centers ran at rack power densities of 5–15 kilowatts per rack. AI and HPC workloads now require 50–100+ kilowatts per rack — a 5–20x increase. That shift requires entirely different facility designs, including liquid cooling and massive power infrastructure, which most legacy operators cannot easily retrofit. This creates an opening for operators like Core Scientific that have experience managing extreme power loads.

Supply constraints are creating a significant bottleneck — and a potential moat for early movers. Key components like high-voltage transformers and advanced cooling systems carry lead times of 12–18 months or more. Skilled construction labor is also scarce. This means operators who already have land, utility agreements, and equipment on order have a meaningful head start over new entrants, since a conventional large data center takes 18–24 months to build from scratch, before accounting for grid interconnection timelines.

Who are Core Scientific's main competitors?

In the colocation market, Core Scientific competes against large, well-established data center operators with deeper pockets and stronger brand recognition. Key rivals include Equinix, Digital Realty Trust, QTS, CyrusOne, NTT, Vantage Data Centers, and others. The filing acknowledges that many of these competitors have better brand recognition, are better capitalized, and some benefit from REIT (real estate investment trust) tax structures that lower their cost of capital — a real disadvantage for Core Scientific when competing for large contracts.

Core Scientific also faces competition from other bitcoin miners making the same pivot to AI/HPC colocation. Companies like Applied Digital, Cipher Mining, Hut 8, IREN, and Terawulf are all trying to convert bitcoin mining facilities into AI infrastructure. The company argues its edge comes from years of operating extremely power-dense infrastructure at scale — bitcoin mining already demands high-density power management, specialized cooling, and 24/7 operations — giving it relevant engineering and operational experience that pure data center companies may lack.

Where does Core Scientific operate?

Core Scientific operates exclusively in the United States, spread across seven states in the South, Midwest, and Southeast. Its ten data centers are located in:

Texas is a particularly important — and complex — geography for the company. Texas accounts for roughly 714 MW of gross utility power capacity, making it the single most important state in the portfolio. However, Texas also enacted Senate Bill 6 in 2025, which imposes new costs and operational requirements on large data center customers, including potential load-shedding obligations during grid emergencies. This regulatory change adds cost and operational risk at Core Scientific's largest facilities. The company has no international operations; all 325 employees are based in the U.S.