AI data center demand ‘unabated’ despite stock selloff, industry banker says

AI trade isn’t dead: An inside look into Wall Street's lucrative data center deals Megawatts are still trading hands, and the AI trade is very much alive, according to investment banker Joe Nardini, as miners pivot to HPC and buyers chase scarce power. What to know: Bitcoin miners and AI/HPC developers are still bidding aggressively for megawatts, even into late Dec., according to investment banker Joe Nardini. GPU-heavy data center capacity is drawing multiple creditworthy tenants at strong rates. Nardini noted that bitcoin miners that repositioned toward HPC are seeing higher valuations and accessing cheaper capital. As fears mount that the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble has popped, Wall Street dealmaking is being kept alive by a fundamental problem: bitcoin miners and data center developers still require serious amounts of power. AI isn’t dead. Megawatts still clear at top dollar, says B. Riley’s Joe Nardini. (Shutterstock, modified by CoinDesk) “M&A work is still ongoing as people still need power,” said Joe Nardini, head of investment banking at B. Riley Securities, in an interview with CoinDesk. See all newsletters Nardini said demand for power from bitcoin miners remains “huge,” but added that the pull from AI and high-performance computing (HPC) is “even bigger,” with data center and mining clients reporting sustained demand for GPU-ready facilities. After the bitcoin halving cut rewards in half, miners faced a severe margin squeeze even with prices near or above $100,000 and increasingly pivoted to hosting AI and high-performance computing (HPC) hardware in their existing data centers. This helped drive sharp gains in some BTC mining stocks this year as AI hype swept through the market. Read more: GPU Gold Rush: Why Bitcoin Miners Are Powering AI’s Expansion Earlier in 2025, rising concerns about artificial intelligence and lofty valuations erased significant market value from major tech names, including Nvidia (NVDA) and other AI beneficiaries, as investors took profits and reassessed whether prices had outpaced fundamentals. AI infrastructure specialist CoreWeave’s (CRWV) stock also retreated and is now more than 50% below its June peak. Does this mean the AI trend is over? Nardini doesn't think so, and he has some simple logic behind this that he asks executives: Do clients have demand for the data center capacity they’ve built? “Yes.” Do they have tenants? “Yes.” Are they good tenants? “Yes.” Are they getting good rates? “Yes.” Across multiple conversations, he said the message has been consistent: “So the demand is still there.” In fact, Hut 8 shares rallied as much as 20% last week after signing a 15-year, $7 billion lease with Fluidstack for 245 megawatts of IT capacity at its River Bend campus. “Despite the recent selloff, these companies have been well rewarded with higher valuation multiples and the ability to raise capital at attractive valuations and terms," he said. Inside the dealmaking This demand is still underpinning valuations and, increasingly, M&A negotiations, according to Nardini. In competitive situations with high-quality power and viable locations, he said, dollars per megawatt (a financial metric for value for each...

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