Europe's Largest Crypto Miner Northern Data Scraps $200M Bitcoin Mining Unit for AI Gold Rush

Europe's biggest crypto miner just called it quits — here's why. | Credit: Getty Images.

Key Takeaways

Europe’s largest Bitcoin miner, Northern Data Group, is selling its BTC mining arm for up to $200 million. The company will reinvest proceeds into high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The move reflects a wider trend among crypto miners pivoting to AI as Bitcoin mining margins shrink.

Europe’s biggest Bitcoin mining firm is calling time on its mining days — and setting its sights on artificial intelligence (AI).

Northern Data Group (NDG), once synonymous with crypto mining dominance, has confirmed it’s selling Peak Mining for as much as $200 million.

The sale marks a decisive step in NDG’s full transformation from a blockchain miner to an AI powerhouse.

Northern Data To Sell BTC Mining Division

The agreement includes $50 million in upfront cash and up to $150 million in deferred payments, tied to profit-sharing from its Texas mining site.

Even as it exits mining, NDG plans to reuse that same infrastructure for data-intensive AI workloads — a move that could prove far more lucrative.

NDG’s pivot has been years in the making.

After quietly signaling its intentions in late 2024, the company began retooling its operations in early 2025 — a time when Bitcoin mining profitability began to crumble under higher energy costs and April’s halving event.

The shift mirrors a broader trend across the crypto industry, as miners repurpose their power-hungry data centers for the surging demand in AI computing.

AI workloads can generate 10 times more revenue per megawatt than Bitcoin mining, making the pivot as much about financial survival as it is about innovation.

NDG has played this game before.

In 2022, it sold several Texas data centers to Riot Blockchain for $651 million, and a year later, acquired GPU specialist Decentric for $429 million.

That deal gave it one of the world’s largest GPU fleets — 223,000 units strong — now perfectly suited for AI.

Betting on AI’s Trillion-Dollar Boom

The firm’s transformation is already paying off. NDG’s AI and cloud revenue tripled in 2024, exceeding €200 million, and the company expects €150 million more from AI services alone in early 2025.

It’s not alone in this pivot. Competitors such as Core Scientific, Hut8, and Iris Energy have all begun converting their mining operations into AI hosting facilities.

Core Scientific even landed a $3.5 billion deal with CoreWeave for AI infrastructure.

For NDG, this sale is more than a business transaction — it’s a statement about where the future lies.

The company’s $200 million mining exit is effectively a buy-in to the trillion-dollar AI arms race.

Story Continues

The End of Mining, or Its Evolution?

Bitcoin mining helped build NDG into a European powerhouse.

Now, the same data centers once used to mint crypto are being reimagined to power large language models and AI training.

It’s a poetic turn — one that encapsulates how far the digital economy has evolved since the early Bitcoin days.

If NDG’s bet pays off, it could prove that the future of mining isn’t in coins anymore, but in computation.

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