Analysts Bullish on Core Scientific's AI Pivot, Price Targets Raised
Shares of Core Scientific Inc. (NASDAQ: CORZ) are gaining fresh attention from Wall Street analysts following the company's decisive strategic pivot from cryptocurrency mining to high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
On Friday, January 26, investment bank Keefe Bruyette & Woods raised its price target on Core Scientific to $25 from $19, maintaining an Outperform rating. The firm updated its financial model ahead of the company's fourth-quarter 2025 report, noting that Core Scientific is "executing a full pivot" from Bitcoin mining to HPC leasing. While the stock's current valuation largely reflects its existing, lucrative contracts with AI cloud provider CoreWeave, analysts see an attractive setup for the shares as the company is expected to announce new pipeline updates and deals.
This upgrade follows a similar move earlier in the month. On January 6, BTIG analyst Gregory Lewis upgraded Core Scientific to Buy from Neutral, setting a $23 price target. Lewis suggested the investment landscape had clarified after shareholders rejected a proposed merger with CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWV). He acknowledged that Core Scientific has been one of the weaker performers among peers converting power infrastructure from crypto to HPC. However, BTIG expects the company to gain significant momentum in 2026 by securing additional colocation contracts, capitalizing on the persistent strength in power infrastructure for compute-intensive AI workloads.
The strategic shift marks a significant transformation for Core Scientific, which historically provided digital asset mining services in the United States through its Self-Mining, Hosted Mining, and nascent HPC Hosting segments. The move aligns with a broader industry trend where former crypto-mining operations are repurposing their substantial power capacity and specialized facilities to meet the exploding demand for AI data processing.
Market Voices: A Divided Street
Michael Thorne, Portfolio Manager at Horizon Capital: "This is a textbook case of a company adapting to a seismic market shift. The AI infrastructure race is real, and Core Scientific's existing assets—power, space, and cooling—are suddenly incredibly valuable. The analyst upgrades are a validation of that underlying asset value being recognized."
Lisa Chen, Tech Analyst at Clearwater Research: "The optimism is warranted but carries execution risk. They're playing catch-up in a fiercely competitive field against established data center operators. Securing those 'additional contracts' BTIG mentions is not a given; it's the critical hurdle. The market will punish them severely if the deal flow slows."
David R. Miller, Independent Investor & Former Mining Operator: "It's a desperate survival move, not some brilliant strategy. They're abandoning their core competency because the Bitcoin mining model got squeezed. Now they're just landlords for AI firms, entirely dependent on CoreWeave and a few others. This 'pivot' is a massive bet on AI hype continuing unabated. One regulatory or demand hiccup in AI, and this house of cards tumbles."
Sarah Jennings, Infrastructure Sector Specialist: "The financial community is finally looking past the crypto volatility and seeing the industrial value. These facilities are essentially power plants optimized for computing. In an era of grid constraints, that's a strategic moat. The rerating of the stock has only just begun."