Bernstein analysts reaffirmed their bullish stance on the Bitcoin mining sector this week, arguing that partnerships between crypto miners and third-party providers have become essential to solving the energy bottleneck hampering artificial intelligence data center growth.

In a Thursday research note, the investment manager highlighted that its Bitcoin mining deal tracker recorded a new AI-related partnership every week in July. Combined agreements now exceed 7.5 gigawatts of capacity, representing approximately $150 billion in contracted multi-year revenue. Bernstein said it remains overweight on the sector.

Access to power is the real bottleneck for AI infrastructure," the analysts wrote, noting that Bitcoin miners already control large-scale energy infrastructure and substations that are costly and time-consuming to build from scratch. As political opposition to new data centers mounts, that existing capacity becomes increasingly valuable.

Several publicly traded mining firms have already capitalized on the trend. Hut 8 secured a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for its AI data center campus, while IREN disclosed $2.8 billion in cloud services contracts with AI developers. Seeking Alpha contributor The Curious Analyst called IREN's move a conversion of "infrastructure advantage into contracted and more predictable revenue," rating the stock a strong buy.

TeraWulf signed a 20-year lease with AI startup Anthropic that could generate roughly $19 billion in revenue, and MARA Holdings announced plans to acquire a Texas site with up to 2 gigawatts of capacity to expand its AI and digital infrastructure business. Bitdeer has also entered the AI cloud services and high-performance computing space.