Bernstein dubs TeraWulf and Cipher "power landlords of AI

Bernstein has initiated coverage of TeraWulf (WULF) and Cipher Digital (CIFR) with Outperform ratings, setting price targets of $36 and $32, respectively, framing both Bitcoin (BTC) miners as emerging AI infrastructure platforms with a power advantage that new data center entrants cannot replicate. Analysts from the research and brokerage firm, led by Gautam Chhugani, dubbed them "the power landlords of AI" — a reference to the brownfield sites, legacy grid positions, and multi-gigawatt power pipelines both companies have assembled as the primary bottleneck for building new AI compute capacity shifts decisively to grid-connected power. Bernstein projects aggregate AI revenue across its Bitcoin miner coverage to expand ninefold from $1.2 billion in 2026 to $10.7 billion by 2030. Across the sector, miners have contracted out 6 gigawatts of power capacity to hyperscalers and neocloud operators across 17 deals worth more than $110 billion over the past two years, the firm said, representing roughly 10% of U.S. data centers currently under construction.

TeraWulf: power M&A and brownfield advantage. For TeraWulf specifically, Bernstein sees AI revenue growing from $14 million in 2025 to $1.7 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 163%. The firm also expects EBITDA margins to reach approximately 84% at maturity, with EBITDA growing from $106 million in 2026 to $1.4 billion by 2030. TeraWulf has contracted 643 gross megawatts to Fluidstack and Core42 under deals spanning 10 to 25 years, representing roughly $13 billion in total contracted revenue, with approximately 91% tied to Fluidstack. WULF's structural edge, Bernstein argues, lies in its acquisition-driven power strategy — redeveloping legacy industrial sites including a former coal-fired power plant at Lake Mariner, a retired coal plant at Lake Hawkeye, and a former aluminum smelter at its Justified Data campus in Kentucky — which the firm estimates cuts buildout capex to $7.2 million per IT megawatt against a peer industry benchmark of $11 to $13 million. The 3.8 gigawatt portfolio spans New York, Kentucky, Maryland, and Texas, a geographic diversification that the note positions as a hedge against single-state regulatory risk. The firm values WULF at 21x one-year forward EV/EBITDA on steady-state 2030 EBITDA, discounting the implied enterprise value back to arrive at its $36 target price. Upside beyond that figure would require new HPC contracts at the 480-megawatt Kentucky campus, which Bernstein models separately but does not include in its base case.

Cipher Digital: hyperscaler relationships and improving deal terms. For Cipher Digital, Bernstein projects AI revenue growing from $19 million in 2026 to $1.2 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of approximately 180%, with EBITDA margins stabilizing at 93%. CIFR has contracted 495 IT megawatts across $11.4 billion in total revenue, with approximately 67% of the order book now backed by investment-grade hyperscalers, including AWS and an undisclosed third hyperscaler, against an earlier contract book anchored by neocloud intermediaries. Bernstein singles out CIFR's evolution across successive deals as evidence of improving negotiating leverage. Its first deal at Barber Lake was structured as a modified gross lease with Fluidstack, backstopped by a $1.7 billion Google guarantee. Its AWS contract at Black Pearl shifted to a triple-net structure, lifting net operating margins toward 100% and enabling the company to raise $2 billion in project financing at 6.125% — 100 basis points tighter than the $1.7 billion raised for Barber Lake. A third 15-year campus lease with a still-unnamed investment-grade hyperscaler broadly follows the same template.

Sector outlook and key risks. Across the broader sector, Bernstein's top pick remains IREN, rated Outperform with a $100 price target, for its vertically integrated cloud model backed by a 5-gigawatt global power footprint and partnerships with Microsoft and NVIDIA. The f