NEW YORK, May 20, 2026, 07:18 EDT
CleanSpark Inc (CLSK.O) shares rose before the U.S. open on Wednesday, extending a sharp Tuesday rally, after a Bernstein call put fresh attention on bitcoin miners that own scarce power capacity for artificial intelligence data centers. The stock was quoted at $14.94 in pre-market trading at 07:15 EDT, up 1.7% from Tuesday’s $14.69 close, while bitcoin traded near $77,400.
The point of the move is simple enough. Investors are looking beyond mined bitcoin and asking whether CleanSpark’s power contracts can be sold, leased or converted into higher-value AI infrastructure.
Bernstein assigned CleanSpark an Outperform rating and a $24 price target, according to Benzinga, which reported that analysts led by Gautam Chhugani see bitcoin miners as owners of more than 27 gigawatts of planned power capacity. The firm said AI-linked deals already cover about 3.7 gigawatts and more than $90 billion in value across hyperscalers, neoclouds and chip providers.
Bernstein’s shorthand was “Follow the Gigawatts.” In plain English: the scarce thing is not just chips or buildings, but electricity that can be connected to the grid and used soon. crypto.news
CleanSpark has been trying to tell that story for months. In its April update, the company said it produced 640 bitcoin, held 13,453 bitcoin at month-end, ran at 50.0 EH/s of operational hashrate — the computing power used to mine bitcoin — and had 1.8 gigawatts under contract, of which 808 megawatts were utilized. Chief Executive Matt Schultz said, “Bitcoin mining funds the platform, AI monetizes it.” CleanSpark
The AI language is now central. HPC, or high-performance computing, means dense server work used for AI training and other heavy workloads; a hyperscaler is a very large cloud operator that buys data-center capacity at scale.
On CleanSpark’s latest earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Gary Vecchiarelli told analysts bitcoin mining remains the company’s “functional currency” until it secures a stabilized lease. That is the bridge in the business plan: mine coins now, sign longer-duration AI leases later.
The grid backdrop helps explain why the stock reacted. Reuters reported this week that U.S. data centers can be built in 18 to 24 months, but grid connections can take three to seven years in parts of the country; those waiting lines are known as interconnection queues.
CleanSpark is not alone. Bernstein also highlighted IREN, Riot Platforms and Core Scientific, while noting IREN’s planned 5-gigawatt AI compute buildout and Riot’s co-location deal with AMD. That peer set matters because miners are increasingly being valued against power access, not only bitcoin production.
The older bitcoin math is still there, and it is rough. CleanSpark reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $136.4 million, down 24.9% from a year earlier, and a net loss of $378.3 million, or $1.52 a share. Its adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP profit measure, was negative $241.2 million.
CoinDesk reported that the quarter included a $224.1 million non-cash bitcoin fair-value loss, an accounting markdown tied to market prices rather than an immediate cash expense. Even so, it shows how quickly bitcoin volatility can run through the reported numbers.
Management says demand is real. Schultz told Northland Capital Markets analyst Michael Grondahl that a neocloud company — a specialist AI cloud provider — had asked to see all CleanSpark sites with 60 megawatts or more available now or soon, and said demand was “going nowhere but up.”
Delivery is the harder part. Chief Business Officer Harry Sudock said the company sees a 14-to-18-month delivery window after a first lease signing, while management has also said it wants a signed lease before committing major capital at a site.
But the trade can break. A delayed hyperscale lease, a lower bitcoin price, tougher local permitting, grid constraints or higher financing costs could push the shares back toward old mining multiples. Bernstein also flagged regulatory and environmental scrutiny for large data-center projects, and CleanSpark’s own April release listed power availability, regulatory approvals and digital-asset volatility among the risks.
The next test comes quickly. CleanSpark is scheduled to appear at the B. Riley Annual Investor Conference on May 21, followed by the Macquarie AI Infrastructure Conference on June 10 and the Northland Growth Conference on June 23. Investors will listen for one thing above all: whether “power” is still just an asset, or soon becomes a signed customer contract. CleanSpark
