Through the acquisition, CoreWeave will own approximately 1.3 GW of gross power across Core Scientific’s national data center footprint
In sum – what to know:
Mega deal – CoreWeave is to acquire Core Scientific in an all-stock deal, gaining control of 1.3 GW of power capacity and infrastructure.
Cost savings – CoreWeave expects $500M in annual cost savings and the removal of $10B in lease overheads, accelerating its AI strategy.
Crypto-to-AI – CoreWeave may repurpose or divest Core Scientific’s crypto mining infra for AI workloads to sharpen focus on HPC growth.
AI cloud company CoreWeave is to buy data center developer Core Scientific for approximately $9 billion. The all-stock transaction will see CoreWeave take charge of approximately 1.3 GW of power across Core Scientific’s national data center footprint, with an incremental 1 GW of gross power available for expansion.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory and stockholder approvals. Core Scientific has sites across North Dakota, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma. Michael Intrator, chairman at CoreWeave, said the deal improves the firm’s ability to deploy AI and HPC workloads at scale.
He stated: “Verticalizing the ownership of Core Scientific’s high-performance data center infrastructure enables CoreWeave to significantly enhance operating efficiency and de-risk our future expansion, solidifying our growth trajectory. Owning this foundational layer of our platform will enhance our performance and expertise as we continue helping customers unleash AI’s full potential.”
CoreWeave expects to generate major cost savings by streamlining business operations and eliminating lease overheads. It estimated some $500 million in annual run rate cost savings by the end of 2027. It also removes $10 billion of cumulative future lease overhead fees, which had been due for existing contractual sites over a period of 12 years.
The acquisition will enable it to pursue infrastructure financing strategies to fund committed capital expenditures, reducing its overall cost of capital. It will also gain greater control over a critical power footprint with an option on future power capacity.
Adam Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of Core Scientific, said: “We will be well-positioned to accelerate the availability of world-class infrastructure for companies innovating with AI while delivering the greatest value for our shareholders, who will be able to participate in the tremendous upside potential of the combined company.”
The AI cloud firm noted potential to repurpose the inherited cryptomining capacity towards high-performance computing (HPC) usage or divest the crypto mining business in the future.
The agreement will see Core Scientific stockholders receive 0.1235 newly issued shares of CoreWeave Class A common stock for each share of Core Scientific common stock. Upon closing, CoreWeave expects Core Scientific’s stockholders’ ownership of the combined company will be less than 10%.
At the end of last year, CoreWeave said it had 32 data centers operating more than 250,000 GPUs in total and more than 360MW of active power.
It previously attempted to acquire Core Scientific in June 2024, offering $1 billion for the company – an offer that was rejected by Core Scientific. “The Board determined that the CoreWeave proposal significantly undervalues the company and is not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” Core Scientific said at that time.
In March, CoreWeave announced a strategic agreement to deliver AI infrastructure to OpenAI, expanding the latter’s compute capacity for training and delivering its latest models at scale to its hundreds of millions of users around the world. The contract value is worth up to $11.9 billion.
