Core Scientific to Buy Polaris Oklahoma Site for $421M

Core Scientific agreed to acquire Polaris DS’s Muskogee, Oklahoma bitcoin site for $421 million, taking control of 440 megawatts of power contracted with Oklahoma Gas & Electric to expand its Muskogee campus for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads.

The company said it plans to scale the Muskogee campus to about 1.5 gigawatts of gross power, or roughly 1 gigawatt of leasable capacity, by combining acquisitions, grid upgrades and behind-the-meter generation. The Polaris property adds about 40 adjacent acres, an on-site substation and existing electric service agreements with OG&E. Because the site is energized and operating, Core expects to accelerate delivery timelines for customers compared with building new sites that require utility approvals and transmission access.

The agreement is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. The transaction does not include Polaris’s active bitcoin mining business; Polaris will transfer its mining operations, employees, customer contracts and intellectual property out of the assets being sold before closing. The current mining operation will wind down in phases through mid-2028 under a temporary leaseback while Core repurposes the site for high-density compute deployments.

The base purchase price is $421 million and could rise to $461 million if Polaris secures an additional 40 megawatts of firm capacity before the end of 2026 under an amendment to its utility agreement. Core Scientific has placed $120 million into escrow related to the acquisition, including an initial deposit made in January, and said the deal will be funded from existing liquidity.

Construction is already under way on a second, currently unleased 82.5-megawatt building at the Muskogee campus, with delivery expected in the fourth quarter of 2027. A 70-megawatt facility designed for Nvidia’s GB300 platform remains on track for delivery to a customer in the second quarter of 2026 following final testing and commissioning.

Core Scientific Chief Executive Adam Sullivan described the company’s approach as a “multi-tiered” scaling strategy that mixes acquisitions, development expertise and behind-the-meter power to assemble gigawatt-scale capacity. The company has been converting large bitcoin mining campuses into compute sites because those campuses already have grid access, substations and high-capacity electrical infrastructure that can shorten deployment timelines.

Core Scientific previously disclosed plans to convert its Pecos, Texas campus into about 1.5 gigawatts of data center development targeting roughly 1 gigawatt of leasable capacity. The company is also building several projects in partnership with CoreWeave after signing long-term high-performance computing hosting agreements; bond filings show Core and CoreWeave expect to spend about $5.5 billion developing six data centers across five sites by the first half of 2027.

Oklahoma officials have promoted the state as a destination for energy-intensive compute projects, pointing to recent behind-the-meter legislation and other energy policies. Governor Kevin Stitt credited those policies with helping attract large-scale infrastructure investment and noted growing interest from companies that require substantial, reliable power for AI and HPC workloads.