Core Scientific expects to exit Bitcoin mining entirely by the end of 2026 as the company completes its transition toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure.

“We expect to complete the wind-down during the fourth quarter and enter 2027 as a pure-play, high-density colocation provider,” Core Scientific chief financial officer Jim Nygaard said during the company's third-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

The company had previously disclosed in a July quarterly filing that hosted mining would end by Dec. 31 as it continued winding down its self-mining operations. The latest statement establishes a targeted completion date for the full Bitcoin mining exit. The quarterly figures are detailed in Core Scientific's third-quarter 2026 results announcement.

The latest results show how far the business has shifted. Third-quarter self-mining revenue fell to $12.3 million from $57.4 million a year earlier, while revenue from hosting other miners dropped to $5.2 million from $8.7 million.

Bitcoin mining generated $17.5 million, or 7.5%, of Core Scientific's $232.9 million in third-quarter revenue, compared with $215.4 million from colocation services — the business of renting out data-center space, power, and cooling for customers' own hardware, which now accounts for more than 90% of the company's quarterly revenue. Nygaard added that the company had nearly 50% fewer miners online at the end of September than at the end of 2025.

From mining expansion to full AI pivot

Core Scientific's move into AI hosting took shape in 2024. The company signed an initial hosting agreement with CoreWeave in March of that year, followed by a much larger deal announced in June. At the time, Core Scientific presented AI hosting as an expansion alongside its mining business, and its June 2024 announcement emphasized preserving Bitcoin mining capacity.

By December 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that Core Scientific was already targeting a wind-down of its Bitcoin mining operations by 2028. The Journal's reporting placed the company within a wider industry shift in which Bitcoin miners retooled their data centers to serve AI demand.

Mining economics added pressure in the months that followed. Core Scientific recorded $266.5 million in mining-related asset impairments in the first quarter of 2026, citing weaker Bitcoin prices, historically low hashprice — an industry gauge of the revenue miners earn per unit of computing power — and falling values for digital asset mining equipment in the secondary market. During the second quarter, the company terminated its mining equipment agreement with Block and Proto, recording a $41.9 million loss as part of the transition.

Data-center growth faces post-election scrutiny

The planned exit comes as US election results introduce fresh uncertainty for companies expanding AI infrastructure. Opponents of data-center development were among the winners of the Democrats' sweeping midterm gains, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The backlash centers partly on electricity bills and the demands large facilities place on local resources. That scrutiny will frame the company's next milestones: completing the wind-down in the fourth quarter and beginning 2027 with colocation as its sole business line.

Cointelegraph reached out to Core Scientific for comment.

Source: Cointelegraph