Core Scientific Adds Former Equinix CEO to Board as AI Buildout Scales

Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) appointed former Equinix Chief Executive Officer Steve Smith to its board, adding a veteran data center executive as the company tries to scale one of the largest AI infrastructure buildouts among former Bitcoin miners.

Smith, who has led fiber network operator Zayo Group since 2020, will join Core Scientific’s board immediately and serve on its nominating and corporate governance committee, the Austin-based company said Tuesday. He previously served as president and CEO of Equinix from 2007 to 2018, a period when the data center operator grew annual revenue from about $400 million to more than $4 billion and integrated more than 20 acquisitions, according to Core Scientific.

The appointment gives Core Scientific another board member with deep experience in commercial data center operations, connectivity infrastructure and large-scale customer relationships. Those areas have become more central to the company as it shifts from its legacy Bitcoin mining business toward high-density colocation, a model designed to host AI and high-performance computing workloads.

Core Scientific CEO Adam Sullivan said Smith’s experience would be valuable as the company executes what he described as one of the market’s largest multi-site AI infrastructure buildouts. Smith said Core Scientific is positioned to benefit from rising demand for high-performance compute infrastructure.

The board appointment comes after several months of expansion announcements that have pushed Core Scientific further into the race to convert power-heavy mining campuses into AI-ready data centers. In April, the company said it planned to scale its Pecos, Texas, campus to about 1.5 gigawatts of gross power, or roughly 1.0 gigawatt of leasable power. In May, it announced a similar plan for its Muskogee, Oklahoma, campus.

Core Scientific has also been raising capital to finance that transition. The company priced $3.3 billion of senior secured notes in April, part of a broader funding push tied to the buildout of high-density colocation capacity for AI and HPC customers.

The strategy reflects a broader shift across the Bitcoin mining sector. Companies that once competed mainly on hash rate, power cost and machine efficiency are increasingly trying to monetize their grid connections, substations, land and operating teams as AI demand strains the supply of powered data center capacity.

For Core Scientific, the pivot has been anchored by its relationship with CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV), the AI cloud company that has contracted for hundreds of megawatts of infrastructure across Core Scientific sites. Core Scientific said in 2024 that its CoreWeave contracts represented billions of dollars in projected cumulative revenue, including a 120-megawatt option exercise that brought projected cumulative revenue from the relationship to $8.7 billion at the time.

Smith’s background at Equinix is especially relevant to that transition. Equinix grew into one of the world’s largest digital infrastructure companies by combining data center capacity with enterprise connectivity and interconnection services — capabilities that have become more important as AI workloads require not only power and cooling, but also reliable network access and disciplined delivery across multiple sites.

Smith also serves on the boards of Zayo and NEXTDC, an Australian data center company, and is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.