Welcome back! This is Canaan's weekly newsletter on Bitcoin mining, energy, and compute infrastructure.
 

AI is doing something Bitcoin mining finished doing a decade ago: moving off general-purpose hardware and onto silicon that does one thing well.
 

The evidence is no longer anecdotal. TrendForce expects CSP in-house ASIC server shipments to grow materially faster than GPU systems in 2026, and currently estimates ASIC-based systems at roughly 27% of AI-server shipments. Broadcom reported $16.7 billion of AI semiconductor revenue in its third quarter, up 221% year over year, and guided to $21.7 billion in the fourth. Google made Ironwood generally available last year and, on its earnings call, told analysts it would begin delivering TPUs to a select group of customers inside their own data centers.

https://x.com/Sam_Badawi/status/2096570819539513623

Miners have seen this film. On January 19, 2013, Avalon shipped its first batch of 300 units at 60 GH/s, roughly 6 watts per gigahash, close to an order of magnitude better than the FPGA hardware it displaced. GPU mining became uneconomical within months. The network went from 25 TH/s to 1 PH/s in less than nine months.
 

Comparing the first Avalon to the A16XP announced last October, we see a 470-fold efficiency gain. Those gains came from thirteen years of node shrinks, packaging, voltage regulation, and thermal work.
 

It’s also worth stating where the analogy has some limitations. SHA-256 never changed. Transformer architectures change constantly, and an ASIC is a bet that the workload holds still long enough to earn back its mask costs. That bet is safer in some places than others, which is why Google split its eighth generation into two chips, a Broadcom-designed trainer and a MediaTek-designed inference part. Inference is the half of AI that behaves more like mining: high volume, repetitive, stable enough to freeze into silicon. Training is where flexibility still earns its premium, and where Nvidia holds roughly three quarters of revenue.
 

So the open question for 2027 is what happens to operators after silicon converges, because mining suggests convergence arrives faster than anyone budgets for. In mining, the answer was energy: siting, curtailment, and eventually finding a second buyer for the heat.

In the News

• IREN's 2GW Sweetwater Hub Gets Conditional ERCOT Base Load Status

• Cipher Digital Begins Pipeline Development for 2.5 GW On-Site Power Generation

• AI Data Centers to Draw $31.6 Trillion Through 2050, PwC Says

• NVIDIA Reaches $11.9 Billion Deal to Acquire AI Platform Hugging Face

• Nvidia-Backed Nscale Touts $103 Billion Contract Book Ahead of IPO

• Argo Blockchain CEO Justin Nolan Steps Down as Firm Shifts Toward AI Infrastructure

• Zcash Tops $1,000, But Rising Computing Power Blunts Mining Windfall

Network at a Glance

• BTC price (USD): ~$78,756

• Network hashrate: 935.8 EH/s

• Difficulty: 127.4T

• Hashprice: ~$39 / PH / day

Project Spotlight

Last week's spotlight covered the A1346. It had a sibling. Canaan launched the A13 series on October 24, 2022 with two models: the A1346 at 110 TH/s and 30 J/TH, and the A1366 at 130 TH/s and 25 J/TH.
 

Same series, same launch day, two different customers. The A1346 was the machine for operators whose binding constraint was capital. The A1366 was for operators whose constraint was the meter, buying 17% fewer joules per terahash at a higher price per unit.
 

https://x.com/canaanio/status/1660469375219159040

The timing made that choice unusually consequential. The A13 series shipped into the worst mining downturn on record, when hashprice was collapsing and the marginal machine on most sites was already underwater. Efficiency was not a specification that quarter. It was the difference between running and curtailing.

Events and Media

• NG Zhang wrote for Data Center Dynamics on why waste heat is a revenue line rather than a disposal problem.

• The Canaan team will be at the H.C. Wainwright 28th Annual Global Investment Conference in New York, September 14 to 16.

• Canaan America hosted an X Space yesterday on Energy Abundance and Where Mining Goes Next.

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Disclaimer: This newsletter shares industry commentary and third-party news for informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by third-party sources are those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Canaan Inc.  For official news, please refer to Canaan’s press releases and SEC filings at https://investor.canaan-creative.com/.