Core Scientific AMD Partnership Overshadows Q2 Loss

Core Scientific's AMD partnership, announced on 2026-07-28, shifts the company toward AI-ready colocation and changes its revenue profile even as Q2 results showed a large net loss tied to warrant revaluation.

AMD Partnership Anchors Multi-Year AI Capacity

Core Scientific Inc. (CORZ) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) said AMD will secure up to 2.5 gigawatts of data-center capacity from Core Scientific to support AMD AI infrastructure deployments. The deal is anchored by 15-year leases for about 530 megawatts across five U.S. campuses, including 377 megawatts leased directly by AMD in Pecos and Hunt County, Texas, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, and 152 megawatts tied to an AMD-supported cloud customer in Auburn, Alabama, and Dalton, Georgia. These AMD-anchored leases represent more than $14 billion of potential base contracted revenue.

The companies will collaborate on physical infrastructure design and deployment of AMD Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs, and ROCm software. AMD will receive market-priced warrants subject to commercial conditions. Core Scientific’s chief executive said, "Our proven execution capabilities and ability to deliver high-density infrastructure at scale position us to support AMD’s technology roadmap and grow our relationship meaningfully over time."

Core Scientific’s total leasable customer power capacity reached 1.1 gigawatts, corresponding to roughly $24 billion of potential contracted revenue. As of mid-July, the company was billing customers for 437 megawatts of capacity, representing about $635 million in average annualized colocation revenue. The company, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2024, has been repurposing facilities toward high-density colocation.

Q2 Results Reflect Strategic Pivot and Execution Risks

Core Scientific reported total revenue of $164.2 million and a net loss of $1.15 billion for the quarter ended 2026-06-30. The company attributed the loss primarily to the revaluation of warrants following a rise in its share price. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $41.1 million from $8.9 million in the prior quarter, and gross profit was about $70 million.

The operational mix showed a pronounced shift to high-density colocation: colocation revenue increased to $136.7 million while digital-asset self-mining revenue fell to $21.5 million. Colocation gross margin expanded to 59% from 11% a year earlier, while self-mining recorded a negative 56% margin.

Core Scientific’s warrants tied to the AMD program cover up to 30 million common shares at an exercise price of $23.47 per share. About 6.5 million warrants vested on the initial leases, with further tranches set to vest as additional capacity is contracted. Under certain conditions, AMD has the right to reserve another 1,925 megawatts of capacity through 2028-12-28, potentially expanding the partnership to the headline scale.

Analysts have noted that a prior roughly 17-month pause in signing new colocation leases highlights execution risk for the multi-year build-out. The structure—long-duration leases anchored by milestone-linked equity instruments—secures a sizable contracted backlog but creates near-term earnings volatility and potential equity dilution as the program progresses.

Taken together, the AMD partnership recasts Core Scientific as an AI-infrastructure landlord with long-term contracted revenue, shifting its business profile away from Bitcoin self-mining even as warrant-linked accounting swings produce headline losses. The company’s ability to convert the contracted backlog into sustained cash flow will depend on multi-year execution.