Peers seek support from giants—why does Wu Jihan prefer to do hard labor?

March 30, 2026, Bitdeer released a Nordic retrofit blueprint that shocked the market.

They announced that their subsidiary TDC has hired Norwegian contractor DCI to renovate existing facilities in Tydal, Norway, into a 180-megawatt AI data center, expected to be completed in December 2026. The project is mainly intended to run Nvidia’s latest Vera Rubin AI platform.

But this is not a story of someone with money acting recklessly and making a big show of it.

Currently, Bitdeer’s total debt already exceeds $1.3 billion.

On one side is a ledger nearing the red line; on the other is Europe’s top-tier computing power infrastructure that consumes capital.

What, exactly, is behind this high-contrast move—what are they aiming for?

I. An extreme survival battle with just a 4.7% gross margin

The source of every move is that Bitdeer’s old business has faced a cliff-like squeeze.

In April 2024, during Bitcoin’s fourth halving, the block reward was cut from 6.25 to 3.125.

Revenue was slashed in an instant, but electricity costs and equipment depreciation did not decrease by a single cent.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Bitdeer’s mining business gross margin fell to 4.7%. That means if you earn 100 dollars, after deducting costs you are left with fewer than 5 dollars.

Even worse, other fronts began to catch fire one after another.

On November 10, 2025, the quarterly report showed that its in-house A4 chip was delayed significantly. Loss per share for the period was $1.28, far worse than the expected loss of $0.22. The next day, the stock price dropped 14.9%.

Right after that, on the afternoon of November 11, a fire broke out at a mining site under construction in Ohio, and two buildings collapsed.

To make matters worse, starting in December 2025, several law firms filed class-action lawsuits one after another, alleging that the company made misleading statements about the A4 chip’s technology maturity and mass-production schedule between June 6, 2024 and November 10, 2025.

Profits are compressed to the limit, and the status quo keeps getting disrupted.

With cash flow already so tight, why would they still make such a big bet to move into Norway?

II. What’s most valuable isn’t the mining rigs—it’s cheap electricity

Because going to Norway is actually about finding a breakthrough.

Bitdeer has 175-megawatt mining facilities in Tydal, Norway. On March 30, 2026, it announced converting them into a 180-megawatt AI data center.

“AI machine rooms hate heat the most and consume the most power.” Industry insiders pointed out, “Norway’s industrial electricity price is roughly $0.04–$0.09 per kilowatt-hour, and the average annual temperature is about 5.8°C—like a huge natural air conditioner.”

With this natural environment helping them, their liquid-cooling facilities can achieve a PUE of 1.1. In other words, for $1 of electricity, more than $0.90 goes to the real work.

And local power comes from hydropower at nearly 100%. The excess heat from the data center can also be transferred to nearby food plants. This kind of “green and eco-friendly” story is very appealing to capital markets. In February 2026, Bitdeer issued a $325 million convertible bond at a 5% interest rate.

With naturally cool air and cheap power, the idea of converting suitable mining sites into AI machine rooms has become a consensus across the entire industry.

But in terms of how exactly to do this, Bitdeer chose a path that’s extremely ambitious.

III. $65 million in annual interest—carrying the heaviest part personally

By 2026, peers were all scrambling to pivot and find a way out.

Some either become light-asset landlords, or they tie themselves to big tech to stay steady.

In June 2024, U.S.-listed mining company Core Scientific signed a 12-year computing power contract worth more than $10 billion with a cloud services provider.

In December 2025, Canadian mining company Hut 8 signed a $7 billion AI infrastructure deal with Google after getting a guarantee.

By January 2026, Riot sold 1,080 bitcoins to acquire Texas land, then turned around and entered a potential $1 billion data center lease with AMD.

But Wu Jihan, who came from the era of Bitmain, still maintains a distinctly personal style—raising money himself, building it himself, and operating it himself.

This can help them capture profit across the upstream and downstream, but it also means they shoulder the massive risk of heavy assets entirely on their own.

As of February 2026, Bitdeer’s AI business is running 2,096 GPUs, with utilization around 64%. All told, it can bring in about $21 million in revenue per year at most.

But on the other side, that more than $1.3 billion in debt generates interest of as much as $65 million per year.

This AI revenue from current operations is enough to cover only about four months’ worth of interest.

This heavy-asset blueprint has directly forced Wall Street into two camps with sharp, contrasting views.

IV. Nearly 40% short interest—everyone is waiting for a signature

One group sees a severely undervalued computing power gold mine.

As of March 2026, among 12 institutions covering the company, 10 have issued “buy” ratings, with an average target price of $26.6.

An investment bank Benchmark cited industry benchmarks, saying that the typical cost to build a new AI data center is usually between $8 million and $12 million per megawatt. With Bitdeer’s low-priced electricity, its revaluation upside is huge.

But another group paid with real money to cast a cold “no.”

In January 2026, KBW cut its rating to $14. On March 19, Zacks went even further with a “strong sell.”

The most straightforward data is that, as of March 27, Bitdeer’s short positions accounted for 39.83% of its outstanding shares.

This means that for every 5 shares of outstanding stock in the market, nearly 2 shares are being borrowed to short them, with the shorts closely fixated on the uncertainties in Bitdeer’s aggressive expansion.

At this point, all the suspense and pressure ultimately comes down to a single document—the contract for the AI business.

During the February 2026 earnings call, analysts repeatedly asked a core question: Has the 180-megawatt project in Norway signed the lease agreement?

The chief financial officer’s answer at the time was that they were in intensive negotiations with industry-known companies.

Their super-detailed blueprints have already been laid out, and the interest bills are being generated on schedule every day.

Next, it will depend on who is going to carry the bag and move into that 180 megawatts.