Every miner who tries this will go bust
Ultimately, no pubco mining company can resist the investor push toward AI. Profit margins, profit margins, profit margins.
https://theminermag.com/news/2024-09-05/bitcoin-marathon-ai-board/
Discussion
It makes sense that there is a strategic benefit for collocation among large consumers of energy and, if a public mining company wants to broaden their service/product line with something complementary and predictable (unlike mining as it pertains to revenues), why not do so?
The disadvantage I see is that running a high compute data center is a different set of skills & responsibilities than operating a mining farm with regards to climate control, software management, hardware management, etc. but, so what? That’s a staffing & operations challenge. Not impossible. If it helps a mining company smooth out its P&L, again, I don’t see the problem — especially if they are going to HODL what they mine on their balance sheet.