Meta, Microsoft ramp AI spending; bitcoin miners pivot to host AI workloads

Meta and Microsoft — in fourth-quarter results and 2026 outlooks released Wednesday evening — signaled continued heavy AI investment, with Meta forecasting 2026 capital spending of $115–$135 billion, well above consensus, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella saying, “We are only at the beginning phases of AI diffusion.” Shares of bitcoin mining companies that shifted business plans to cater to AI infrastructure were major winners in 2025 and have continued gains into 2026, a trend that big-tech earnings this week suggest could persist as AI spending shows no sign of slowing.

Facing a profit squeeze after bitcoin’s last halving, higher competition and rising power costs, many miners have pivoted to use their data centers to host AI and cloud-computing machines. The move has, the report says, saved many miners from going under by diversifying revenue beyond mining bitcoin and capturing AI-related demand.

The report highlights specific deals: Iren announced a multiyear cloud-services contract with Microsoft to support AI workloads using advanced Nvidia chips, and Cipher Mining signed a deal with Amazon to deliver 300 megawatts of capacity to Amazon Web Services. IREN was up 4.9% on Wednesday ahead of the results, bringing its year-to-date gain to 47% and year-over-year advance to 524%.

CIFR was up 1.2% on Wednesday, up 17% in 2026 and 322% year-over-year, while Hut 8 is up 26% year-to-date and 230% year-over-year.

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