Crypto News: AI and Crypto Partnership Could Revolutionize Global Economy, Adding Trillions to GDP

Crypto News: AI and Crypto Partnership Could Revolutionize Global Economy, Adding Trillions to GDP

Crypto News – The combined impact of the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI) industries could add up to $20 trillion to the global GDP by 2030, according to a report by digital asset manager Bitwise. Juan Leon, Bitwise’s Senior Crypto Research Analyst, emphasized the significant potential at the intersection of AI and crypto, suggesting it could be larger than currently anticipated.

One key area of collaboration is the emerging partnership between Bitcoin miners and AI technologies. As the AI sector booms, companies like Nvidia have garnered significant attention, with Nvidia recently achieving a market cap of $3 trillion, making it the third-largest company globally, following Microsoft and Apple. However, this surge has also highlighted a lesser-known impact on data centers.

The pursuit of AI dominance has led to an unprecedented demand for data centers, AI chips, and electricity, with the top cloud providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft—projected to invest nearly $200 billion in new data centers next year alone. Despite this investment, data centers are struggling to keep up, with over 80% of capacity under construction already pre-leased, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE Group.

While application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), designed specifically for Bitcoin mining, are not suitable for AI purposes, the infrastructure of mining firms—such as their storage and cooling systems and access to inexpensive power—presents substantial diversification opportunities. This infrastructure can support AI’s vast computational needs and the extensive data centers required to handle large volumes of information.

A notable example of this collaboration is AI cloud provider CoreWeave’s recent $1.6 billion offer to acquire Bitcoin miner Core Scientific, representing a 55% premium over its market price. This move follows a significant 12-year, $3.5 billion partnership between the two companies, allowing CoreWeave to utilize Core Scientific’s data centers for its AI services.

Core Scientific’s CEO, Adam Sullivan, highlighted the benefits of this relationship, stating that it enables the company to diversify its business model and balance its portfolio between Bitcoin mining and alternative compute hosting. This diversification aims to maximize cash flow and minimize risk while maintaining substantial exposure to Bitcoin’s potential upside.

Bitcoin mining companies, including Core Scientific, have been exploring revenue expansion strategies since the April Bitcoin halving, which halved miners’ block rewards. Other companies like Hut 8 and Iris Energy have pursued similar AI diversification initiatives recently.

Looking ahead, blockchain-based validation presents another promising opportunity at the intersection of crypto and AI. As AI tools gain popularity, concerns about AI-generated content and “deep fakes” have emerged. New projects are leveraging the transparency and immutability of decentralized public blockchains to counter AI abuses. One such startup, Attestiv, creates digital “fingerprints” for videos based on metadata, storing them on a public blockchain. This allows platforms to verify the authenticity of videos and detect manipulations.

Furthermore, integrating AI with smart contracts and digitally native money like Bitcoin or stablecoins could enhance productivity by facilitating secure, efficient transactions without the need for centralized oversight.

Several projects have recently explored AI and crypto integration. In April, Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr launched its AI-focused Layer 1 blockchain Neura on a public testnet, with a mainnet launch expected later this year. Additionally, imgnAI raised $1.6 million in a seed round led by Hack VC for its “digital companion” launch, and Bagel Network, a decentralized data platform supporting machine learning models, secured $3.1 million in a pre-seed round led by CoinFund.