Core Scientific's new AMD infrastructure partnership adds a second major customer nine months after shareholders rejected an approximately $9 billion all-stock buyout from CoreWeave. The deal covers 529 megawatts of data-center capacity and more than $14 billion of potential base revenue over 15 years, but debt and new warrants complicate any direct comparison to the rejected offer.
Core Scientific's new partnership with Advanced Micro Devices backs up the argument shareholders made when they rejected CoreWeave's takeover bid last year. Yet it does not yet prove the rejection created more value for them.
The company announced the AMD partnership on July 28, giving AMD's ecosystem access to more than 500 megawatts of U.S. data-center capacity starting in 2027, an arrangement that can expand to 2.5 gigawatts. Its earnings release detailed 15-year agreements covering approximately 530 megawatts across five sites, with more than $14 billion of potential base contracted revenue. A regulatory filing added a distinction: AMD directly leased 377 megawatts, while an unnamed neocloud leased another 152 megawatts under terms giving AMD equipment protections if that customer defaults.
Shareholders bet on diversification beyond CoreWeave
Shareholders rejected the all-stock CoreWeave acquisition nine months earlier, whose announcement-date implied equity value was approximately $9 billion and moved with CoreWeave's own stock price through closing. In January, Gullane Capital Partners founder Trip Miller, who had opposed the sale, predicted new AI customers would follow.
According to Business Insider: "I expect them to announce deals for AI with third parties other than CoreWeave". AMD's 377-megawatt lease and the neocloud's 152-megawatt lease together exceed Miller's roughly 400-megawatt expectation, although AMD itself did not directly lease the full 529 megawatts.
Bull case: a second major tenant emerges
Before the AMD deal, CoreWeave was Core Scientific's only meaningful high-density colocation customer, leasing about 590 megawatts and generating 77% of first-half revenue. The new leases almost double total leased customer power capacity to about 1.1 gigawatts. If AMD converts its reservation rights on the remaining 1,925 megawatts into leases, the partnership could eventually surpass the CoreWeave relationship in scale.
Bear case: the comparison isn't clean
The headline comparison between $14 billion of potential revenue and the rejected approximately $9 billion deal is misleading — the $9 billion figure was the CoreWeave bid's announcement-date implied equity value, while the AMD figure is potential base revenue collected over 15 years before construction, financing, and tax costs. Only 529 megawatts is signed, with AMD holding a reservation right, not a lease, on the remaining megawatts through December 2028. AMD also received warrants to buy up to 30 million shares at $23.47 each, with about 6.5 million shares already vested. Full exercise would add about 9.3% dilution while handing Core Scientific approximately $704 million in cash.
Core Scientific also carries approximately $4.4 billion of borrowings, including $3.3 billion of 7.75% senior secured notes issued in May, and complete financing terms for the AMD agreements have not been disclosed.
The next test is whether Core Scientific can deliver the initial 529 megawatts in 2027 as management expects, and convert AMD's remaining reservation into firm leases without disproportionate financing costs or dilution.
Source: Insider Monkey
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