AI data center demand ‘unabated’ despite stock selloff, industry banker says

As fears mount that the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble has popped, Wall Street dealmaking is being kept alive by a fundamental problem: bitcoin BTC$87,429.88 miners and data center developers still require serious amounts of power.

“M&A work is still ongoing as people still need power,” said Joe Nardini, head of investment banking at B. Riley Securities, in an interview with CoinDesk.

Nardini said demand for power from bitcoin miners remains “huge,” but added that the pull from AI and high-performance computing (HPC) is “even bigger,” with data center and mining clients reporting sustained demand for GPU-ready facilities.

After the bitcoin halving cut rewards in half, miners faced a severe margin squeeze even with prices near or above $100,000 and increasingly pivoted to hosting AI and high-performance computing (HPC) hardware in their existing data centers. This helped drive sharp gains in some BTC mining stocks this year as AI hype swept through the market.

Read more: GPU Gold Rush: Why Bitcoin Miners Are Powering AI’s Expansion

Earlier in 2025, rising concerns about artificial intelligence and lofty valuations erased significant market value from major tech names, including Nvidia (NVDA) and other AI beneficiaries, as investors took profits and reassessed whether prices had outpaced fundamentals.

AI infrastructure specialist CoreWeave’s (CRWV) stock also retreated and is now more than 50% below its June peak.

Does this mean the AI trend is over? Nardini doesn’t think so, and he has some simple logic behind this that he asks executives: Do clients have demand for the data center capacity they’ve built? “Yes.” Do they have tenants? “Yes.” Are they good tenants? “Yes.” Are they getting good rates? “Yes.” Across multiple conversations, he said the message has been consistent: “So the demand is still there.”

In fact, Hut 8 shares rallied as much as 20% last week after signing a 15-year, $7 billion lease with Fluidstack for 245 megawatts of IT capacity at its River Bend campus.

“Despite the recent selloff, these companies have been well rewarded with higher valuation multiples and the ability to raise capital at attractive valuations and terms,” he said.

Inside the dealmaking

This demand is still underpinning valuations and, increasingly, M&A negotiations, according to Nardini.

In competitive situations with high-quality power and viable locations, he said, dollars per megawatt (a financial metric for value for each megawatt of electricity) can look “very attractive.” He stated that one process involved a valuation of over $400,000 per megawatt, with the potential to reach $450,000 per megawatt, depending on the outcome of negotiations. In fact, he has seen prior deals priced as high as $500,000 to $550,000 per megawatt.

However, demand for distressed or less desirable locations hasn’t gone away and still draws “lowball” bids, sometimes $100,000–$250,000 per megawatt, from buyers who like the power but discount the market or site quality.

So who are these buyers and sellers?

According to Nardini, buyers include hyperscalers (large tech companies that provide cloud computing infrastructures), AI firms, and bitcoin miners, while the seller universe is expanding beyond crypto-native players.

He has seen dealmaking processes involving old industrial facilities, such as a 160-year-old facility, where the primary attraction is power, even if the market isn’t great. In another case, he said a private seller of a similar type asset drew interest from roughly 25 prospective buyers seeking NDAs, including bitcoin BTC$87,429.88 miners, hyperscalers and AI firms.

That dynamic is creating an unusual strategic fork for asset owners. Sell to a hyperscaler or developer, or try to become a developer themselves.

Nardini said he’s seeing industrial companies with older, idle, or near-idle facilities that have power consider selling into the AI/HPC and Bitcoin ecosystem.

He cited another example involving a private client repurposing older office blocks into modular power capacity, “building 30 megawatt units at a clip,” and now looking for additional funding to expand.

In at least one negotiation, he said, a tenant was even prepared to prepay rent before completion, an illustration, in his view, of how scarce desirable capacity remains.

No need to worry, yet

Looking into 2026, Nardini said the setup still favors risk assets if rates fall, calling it a potentially “risk-on environment,” which will be positive for dealmaking in his industry.

He acknowledged he may be “talking his book a little,” but said the operating reality he’s hearing from executives keeps him constructive: the tenants are there, pricing remains strong, and if one customer doesn’t take a site, “someone else will.”

His caveat to the positive sentiment is simple: if developers can’t lease what they build, or can’t get the price they need, that would be the moment to worry. For now, he says he isn’t hearing that. “The bones of the business remain intact,” he said.

He concluded with a blunt assessment of the sentiment.

“The demand for power and AI HPC data center capacity continues unabated. Developers with data center capacity have demand from multiple creditworthy tenants at good rates, so the core economics of business remain intact.”

Nardini said buyers are still hungry for energy, and sellers are seeing good valuations for their assets. This solidifies his conviction further.

“The AI trade is still alive as of Dec. 17, 2025,” he said.

Read more: Amazon Enters AI Arms Race as Crypto and Risk Asset Fears Mount