The rise of artificial intelligence is skyrocketing demand for data centers to keep pace with the growing tech sector — and pushing Europe to explore space options for digital storage, in a bid to reduce its need for energy-hungry facilities on the ground.

Advanced Space Cloud for European Net zero emission and Data sovereignty, a 16-month long study that explored the feasibility of launching data centers into orbit, has come to a “very encouraging” conclusion, according to Damien Dumestier, manager of the project.

The 2 million-euro ($2.1 million) ASCEND study, coordinated by Thales Alenia Space on behalf of the European Commission, claims that space-based data centers are technically, economically and environmentally feasible.

“The idea [is] to take off part of the energy demand for data centers and to send them in space in order to benefit from infinite energy, which is solar energy,” Dumestier told CNBC.

Data centers are essential for keeping pace with digitalization, but also require significant amounts of electricity and water to power and cool their servers. The total global electricity consumption from data centers could reach more than 1,000 terrawatt-hours in 2026 —that’s roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan, according to the International Energy Agency.

The industry is about to be hit with a “wave of data tsunami,” said Merima Dzanic, head of strategy and operations at the Danish Data Center Industry Association.

“AI data centers need something like three times more energy than a traditional data center and that is a problem not just on the energy side, but also the consumption side,” she told CNBC.

A “whole different approach to how we build, design and operate data centers,” is required, Dzanic added.

The facilities that the study explored launching into space would orbit at an altitude of around 1,400 kilometers (869.9 miles) — around three times the altitude of the International Space Station. Dumestier explained that ASCEND would aim to deploy 13 space data centre building blocks with a total capacity of 10 megawatts in 2036, in order to achieve the starting point for cloud service commercialization.

Each building block — with a surface area of 6,300 square meters — includes capacity for its own data center service and is launched within one space vehicle, he said.

In order to have a significant impact on the digital sector’s energy consumption, the objective is to deploy 1,300 building blocks by 2050 to achieve 1 gigawatt, according to Dumestier.

ASCEND isn’t the only study looking into the potential for orbital data centers. Microsoft, which has previously trialed the use of a subsea data center that was positioned 117 feet deep on the seafloor, is collaborating with companies such as Loft Orbital to explore the challenges in executing AI and computing in space. Its work is crucial for innovation and to “lay the groundwork for future data management solutions in space,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC.

ASCEND is one way through which the EU seeks to gain a competitive advantage within the AI ecosystem, where the bloc is currently lagging behind the U.S. and China, Dzanic said.

The EU is only now “starting to wake up and smell the coffee and go in with funding these projects,” she added.

The ASCEND researchers are in talks with the International Space Agency for the next phase which includes consolidating all of the data they have gathered and work on the development of a heavy lift launcher.

“We want to ensure data sovereignty for Europe, but this kind of project can benefit other countries,” said Dumestier. “We are pushing a lot because we can tell that it is a promising project. It could be a flagship for the Europe space development.”

Crypto companies are suddenly at the center of deal-making. The catalyst is artificial intelligence.

Bitcoin mining companies have expansive data centers, with access to fiber lines and large amounts of power across the U.S. They’re exactly the types of facilities needed for compute-intensive AI operations, which means their sites and technology are in high demand.

Meanwhile, miners need to diversify. Following the bitcoin halving in April, an event that happens about once every four years, the business of generating new tokens has become much less profitable. JPMorgan Chase analysts wrote in a report earlier this month that “some operators are feeling the financial pinch from the recent block reward halving, which cut industry revenues in half, and are actively exploring exit strategies.”

With the burgeoning AI industry in need of capacity and bitcoin miners in search of new ways to generate returns on their hefty capital investments, mergers, financings and partnerships are rapidly coming together.

On Tuesday, U.S. bitcoin miner Core Scientific announced an expanded deal with CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed startup that’s one of the main providers of the chipmaker’s technology for running AI models. Core Scientific will deliver 70 megawatts of computing infrastructure to support CoreWeave’s operations.

Core Scientific said the deal will generate an additional $1.2 billion in revenue over 12 years, on top of an existing arrangement that is expected to bring in $3.5 billion. In total, the company plans to provide about 270 megawatts of infrastructure to CoreWeave by the second half of 2025, with the possibility of adding an additional 230 megawatts at other Core Scientific sites.

Earlier this month, CoreWeave offered to buy Core Scientific for $1.02 billion, not long after their initial agreement. Core Scientific rejected the bid. The company, which returned to the public market in January after going through bankruptcy, is currently worth about $1.8 billion.

“The world is changing, and many data centers built in the last 20 years are not suitable to support future computing requirements,” Core Scientific CEO Adam Sullivan said in Tuesday’s press release.

A day before that announcement, bitcoin mining group Hut 8 said it raised $150 million in debt from private equity firm Coatue to help it build out its data center portfolio for AI.

Hut 8, based in Miami, is one of many crypto mining companies pivoting to AI. The company said in its first-quarter earnings report last month that it had purchased its first batch of 1,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) and secured a customer agreement with a venture-backed AI cloud platform. Hut 8 generates 6% of sales from AI, according to CoinShares.

“The broader market is beginning to appreciate the scarcity of high-quality power assets, and Hut 8 has built a deep pipeline of highly attractive expansion assets,” Robert Yin, a partner at Coatue, said in the financing announcement.

Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot recently told CNBC his company “finalized commercial agreements for our new AI vertical under a GPU-as-a-service model, including a customer agreement which provides for fixed infrastructure payments plus revenue sharing.”

Bit Digital, a bitcoin miner that now derives an estimated 27% of its revenue from AI, said on Monday that it had entered into an agreement with a customer to supply 2,048 Nvidia GPUs over three years, doubling the number of processors it has providing the unspecified client.

To fulfill the contract, Bit Digital ordered 256 servers from Dell Technologies, and will soon deploy them at a data center in Iceland. The company said the contract is expected to generate $92 million in annual revenue. It’s paying for the GPUs, in part, by dumping some crypto.

“The Company intends to finance the deal with a mixture of cash and digital assets on the balance sheet,” Bit Digital said.

Bit Digital also entered a so-called sale-leaseback agreement for half of the new GPUs, “which will reduce the company’s capital outlay commensurately.” With the leaseback, another company owns those GPUs, and Bit Digital leases them back, generating revenue by providing the technology to customers.

While most of the recent crypto deals involve miners, there has been at least one big notable exception.

Earlier this month, trading platform Robinhood agreed to a deal to buy Bitstamp, a Luxembourg-based crypto exchange, for around $200 million in cash.

Bitstamp holds 50 active licenses and registrations across the globe, and is popular in Europe and Asia. The purchase helps Robinhood, a retail-focused trading app, bolster its crypto operation to better take on Binance and Coinbase.

The deal, due to close next year, comes as Robinhood faces regulatory challenges in the U.S. over its crypto dealings. In May, the company said it received a Wells notice for its crypto operations. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also sued Coinbase and Binance.

Robinhood had $4.7 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of the first quarter. Its stock is up 75% this year.