Bitcoin miner company MARA Holdings (MARA.US) surges after hours! Joint with private equity firm Hilton to enter into AI infrastructure.

MARA Holdings (MARA.US) is partnering with Barry Sternlicht's private equity firm Starwood Capital Group to convert some of this Bitcoin mining company's existing sites into infrastructure that can support artificial intelligence (AI) applications and other cloud services. Boosted by this news, as of the time of writing, MARA's stock rose nearly 15% in after-hours trading on Thursday. As the data center development platform of this private equity firm, Starwood Digital Ventures will be responsible for design, tenant recruitment, construction, and facility operations, while MARA will provide some sites. The cryptocurrency mining company stated on Thursday that the two parties expect to immediately deliver approximately 1 gigawatt of capacity, with the possibility of expanding to 2.5 gigawatts. The financial terms were not disclosed. According to MARA's presentation materials, the two parties will exercise joint ownership over all related projects, prioritizing sites that can obtain energy more cost-effectively and have scalable interconnect conditions. In an interview on Thursday, Sternlicht stated, "We assessed many mining companies to see which ones are operational. The key is how quickly we can get these projects up and running, and their geographical location. We are very excited about this joint venture with MARA. Our brand is well-known and trusted in both debt and equity markets, which will help achieve MARA's ambitions." MARA CEO Fred Thiel stated that the mining company would have the right to retain up to 50% ownership in this joint venture, with both parties sharing development costs and profits. At the announcement of the partnership with Starwood, MARA reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.7 billion, including $1.5 billion in unrealized losses due to the write-down of its Bitcoin holdings. The company is the second-largest institutional holder of this cryptocurrency at the corporate level, second only to Michael Saylor's Strategy (MSTR.US). Additionally, MARA's fourth-quarter revenue decreased by 6% from the same period last year, to $202 million. Clear Street's Managing Director Brian Dobson stated, "MARA's deal with Starwood reinforces the view that Bitcoin miners can transition into high-performance computing (HPC) data centers. Their ability to access power and monetize megawatts gives investors confidence." Bitcoin miners have gradually become an important group among the main providers of AI data centers, as some of them are able to access cheap and readily available energy and have sites that can be transformed into higher-tier data centers for AI applications, reducing the time needed for preparation from scratch. Although MARA announced plans to develop infrastructure for AI inference services last year, stock market investors prefer Bitcoin miners who are fully committed to AI transformation. Stocks of IREN (IREN.US), TeraWulf (WULF.US), and Cipher Digital (CIFR.US) have significantly increased in the past year. The market capitalizations of these companies have surpassed MARA, despite MARA's computing power for mining Bitcoin almost exceeding that of all its US-listed peers. Other large miners are also facing increasing pressure from shareholders to accelerate their transformation into providers of AI data center infrastructure. Aggressive investors Starwood own a significant stake in Riot Platforms (RIOT.US) and are pushing the mining company to make more efforts in developing its AI projects. Riot owns one of the world's largest mining farms in Texas and has access to a large amount of energy. The crash in digital assets has also accelerated industry transformation, with more miners beginning to liquidate their Bitcoin holdings and allocate some of the proceeds to cover expenses or fund AI expansion.