AMD Locks In Up to 2.5 Gigawatts of Data Centre Capacity with Core Scientific, Matching the Chipmaker's Infrastructure to Its AI Ambitions
The deal gives AMD's customers access to 500 megawatts of AI-ready capacity from 2027, turning a former bitcoin miner into a beachhead for deploying AMD chips at the same scale Nvidia is securing elsewhere.
AMD signed an agreement with Core Scientific on Tuesday that secures up to 2.5 gigawatts of data centre capacity, a move that embeds the chipmaker directly into the physical infrastructure layer of the AI buildout rather than leaving deployment to its customers alone (Reuters, 2026). Core Scientific shares jumped 6% in premarket trading, while AMD's stock slipped 4 percent, tracking a broader decline among chipmakers.
The partnership starts with more than 500 megawatts of AI-ready capacity that AMD's customers can begin using in 2027. The agreement allows that footprint to expand to 2.5 gigawatts, a scale that puts the deal in the same league as the infrastructure commitments hyperscalers are making for their own campuses. AMD will receive market-priced warrants to purchase Core Scientific common stock, tying the financial relationship to certain commercial milestones. The companies did not disclose the full financial terms.
Core Scientific, one of the former crypto miners that has been repositioning its power assets and data centre expertise toward AI workloads, will do more than just host the chips. The company will work with AMD on physical infrastructure design and the deployment of AMD's hardware and software stack. "Core Scientific's extensive portfolio of AI-ready data centers expands access to the infrastructure our customers need to deploy AMD AI solutions at scale," said Mathew Hein, AMD's chief strategy officer for corporate development.
The deal reflects a structural shift in how chipmakers are approaching the AI infrastructure bottleneck. Nvidia has been the most aggressive, reportedly discussing financing guarantees worth $250 billion for an OpenAI data centre project in Ohio. AMD's Core Scientific agreement is less financially exotic but strategically similar. Chip companies that once sold silicon and left the racking and stacking to others are now locking in the physical floorspace and power those chips will need years in advance.
BuiltWorld AI Operational Take: AMD securing capacity through a former miner is a signal that the chip industry now sees physical infrastructure access as a competitive differentiator, not just a customer problem. For project teams, a 2027 start date on the first 500 megawatts means the clock is already ticking on site readiness, power interconnection, and cooling design. The partnership's success will depend on whether Core Scientific can deliver AI-grade infrastructure at this scale while simultaneously designing it around an architecture that is still fighting for data centre market share against Nvidia's ecosystem.