CleanSpark, Inc.’s CLSK artificial intelligence (AI) expansion is clearly moving forward, but the near-term revenue impact appears limited. The company has outlined a clear plan to broaden beyond Bitcoin mining, but AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data center initiatives are still in an early, non-revenue-generating phase. At present, Bitcoin mining remains the dominant source of revenues.
The company has taken several measures to expand in the AI and HPC data center space. CleanSpark has secured access to more than 1.3 gigawatts of power capacity, identified land opportunities in Georgia and Texas, and partnered with Submer to accelerate deployment using liquid-cooled, modular data center solutions.
However, the timing of monetization remains the key concern. Management has indicated that tenant onboarding, construction, power interconnection approvals and commissioning will likely stretch into 2026 and 2027. Importantly, initial deployments at the Texas AI campus are not expected until the first half of 2027, implying AI-related assets are unlikely to generate revenues before then.
The delay is further heightened by the capital intensity of AI data centers. With construction costs estimated at around $10 million per megawatt, the huge capital expenditure increase could put pressure on near-term cash generation.
Analysts’ revenue projections do not indicate such an optimistic picture either. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 revenues indicates year-over-year growth of 12.1%, while that for fiscal 2027 suggests a decline of 7.7%.
Cipher Mining CIFR is emerging as a strong competitor as CleanSpark enters AI and HPC. Cipher Mining is leveraging low-cost Texas power and fully owned infrastructure to secure hyperscaler-backed revenues. In the third quarter of 2025, Cipher Mining signed a 15-year, 300 MW campus lease with Amazon Web Services, valued at approximately $5.5 billion, beginning in 2026. This is based on its 10-year AI hosting deal with Fluidstack, which is backed by a $1.4 billion Google backstop, underscoring intensifying competition in AI infrastructure.
IREN Limited IREN is intensifying competition in AI infrastructure with a $9.7 billion AI cloud agreement with Microsoft and expanding contracts with Together AI and Fluidstack. With AI cloud revenues scaling toward a $200-$250 million run rate and plans to deploy 140,000 graphics processing units by 2026, IREN’s capital-intensive build-out underscores intensifying competition in AI infrastructure.