AI Data Center Leader Plummets 7% in a Day: What Bad News Emerged?

Core Scientific Inc. (NASDAQ: CORZ) closed at $23.71, down 7.34% from the prior session, on trading volume exceeding 12.2 million shares. Its market capitalization stands at about $7.5 billion (roughly KRW 10 trillion), erasing some $515 million (over KRW 700 billion) in market value in a single day.

Securities firm BTIG recently maintained its “Buy” rating on Core Scientific while raising its price target to $38. To fund its strategic pivot from Bitcoin mining to AI data centers, the company sold approximately $208 million worth of Bitcoin. It is building a 1.5 GW AI-dedicated data center in Texas, rapidly growing its colocation revenue on long-term leases, and gradually reducing its Bitcoin-mining operations.

Originally established as a leading U.S. Bitcoin miner, Core Scientific emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of 2022, restructured its business, and re-listed on Nasdaq as an AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure provider. Today, it focuses on supplying power and cooling infrastructure for data centers rather than specific chip types such as GPUs. With a $12 billion long-term contract with CoreWeave, Core Scientific is regarded as a prime beneficiary of the ongoing AI infrastructure boom.