Kevin O’Leary: U.S. Must Adopt Bitcoin Miner Tactics to Dominate the ‘AI Wars’

Bitcoin miners might hold the key to America’s AI supremacy—or at least that’s what Kevin O’Leary is betting on.

The Shark Tank star turned crypto advocate dropped a bombshell: the U.S. needs to study Bitcoin miners’ energy strategies to win the global AI arms race. Because nothing says 'innovation' like copying the playbook of an industry Congress keeps trying to regulate into oblivion.

Here’s why he’s right—and why Wall Street will still ignore it.

Bitcoin miners are the unsung efficiency nerds of the energy world. They’ve spent years optimizing power consumption, hunting for cheap electricity, and building infrastructure in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, AI data centers guzzle energy like a hedge funder at an open bar—with none of the cost discipline.

O’Leary’s argument cuts through the hype: AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t chips or talent—it’s sustainable energy. And Bitcoin miners cracked that code years ago.

The irony? Washington still treats crypto like a nuisance while throwing billions at AI. But if they want to win the war, they’ll need to learn from the very industry they love to hate. Typical D.C.—burning money to reinvent the wheel while the private sector already built a hyperloop.

Profit squeeze

The bitcoin miners were forced to diversify their business into AI and cloud computing as the recent halving has cut the mining rewards by half, squeezing their profit margin in an already super competitive market. Companies such as Core Scientific (CORZ) have brought the intersection of mining and AI into the mainstream, and other miners such as Hive Digital (HIVE) and Hut 8 (HUT) have pivoted large amounts of their data centers into AI to diversify their revenue.

The marriage of bitcoin mining and hosting AI computing in data centers became an easy way to accomplish this diversification, as the miners are already tapping into the massive amount of electricity needed to support the rapidly increasing data center demands of AI. (A single ChatGPT query requires 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, compared with 0.3 watt-hours for a Google search, according to the International Energy Agency.)

Mega-wattage bitcoin mining operations are typically situated close to abundant energy supplies with industrial-scale power generation connectivity infrastructure already built and running. This makes retrofitting bitcoin mines with AI-powering graphics processing units (GPUs) a potentially attractive proposition — though AI data centers require much more infrastructure.

'Foolish' tariff war

O’Leary says he’s optimistic when he speaks to policymakers about powering the AI boom, namechecking U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. O’Leary, who is Canadian, says Smith caught the attention of the bitcoin mining and AI data center industry when she revealed the province has 200 trillion cubic feet of gas at its fingertips.

This is why a tariff war between the U.S. and Canada is “foolish,” O’Leary said, pointing out that China is preparing for the “AI wars” by setting up new coal-burning electrical plants on a weekly basis.

“We’re not just talking about bitcoin mining, this is about the competitiveness of nations,” O’Leary said.

“We’ve got to bring all this back home, but our biggest problem is power. There's no more power on the domestic grid. Nada. And so, if you want a gigawatt in any state, forget about it. You have to figure out a way to build that power yourself from natural gas or nuclear power or something else.”