MARA’s AI Data Center Pivot: Starwood Partnership Targets 2.5 GW

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings has entered a strategic partnership with Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group to convert its existing mining sites into data center infrastructure for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

MARA shares jumped approximately 17% in after-hours trading following the February 26 announcement.

Joint Venture Targets 2.5 GW Capacity

The two companies will jointly develop, finance, and operate data center projects across MARA’s existing portfolio. Starwood Digital Ventures, the firm’s data center platform, will handle design, construction, tenant sourcing, and operations. MARA will contribute sites with access to low-cost energy.

The joint platform targets approximately 1 gigawatt of near-term IT capacity, with a pathway to more than 2.5 gigawatts. The facilities will be designed to switch workloads between Bitcoin mining and AI compute depending on market conditions and customer demand. MARA will have the option to retain up to 50% ownership in the joint venture, with both companies sharing development costs and profits. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Our partnership with Starwood will allow us to turn power certainty into capacity certainty,” said MARA CEO Fred Thiel, adding that the joint venture offers a more capital-efficient approach to infrastructure buildout.

Starwood Capital manages more than $125 billion in assets. Starwood Digital Ventures operates a 94-person team with data center expertise across more than 10 GW.

Miners Pivot Toward AI Infrastructure

The announcement coincided with MARA’s fourth-quarter earnings, which revealed a $1.7 billion net loss driven largely by unrealized writedowns on its Bitcoin holdings. Quarterly revenue came in at $202 million, down 6% from the same period a year earlier. The company trails only Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. in corporate Bitcoin holdings.

MARA’s move fits a pattern across the mining sector. Companies that once focused solely on Bitcoin production are repurposing their energy assets and physical infrastructure for AI workloads, attracted by shorter lead times compared to building new facilities from scratch.

Several miners that embraced this transition early, including IREN, TeraWulf, and Cipher Mining, have seen their market capitalizations outpace MARA’s despite producing less Bitcoin mining hash power. Meanwhile, Starboard Value has taken a significant stake in Riot Platforms, pressuring the Texas-based miner to accelerate its own data center conversion efforts.

JLL and Paul Weiss served as MARA’s strategic and legal advisors.

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