According to BlocksBridge, anyone expecting Bitcoin mining to get easier as big miners pivot to AI is out of luck.

Hashrate just hit a 7-month high above 1 ZH/s (1,000 EH/s). Smaller operators are buying up the offloaded gear, and difficulty is on track to jump ~11.4% across two consecutive adjustments.

The AI pivot took hardware offline, but the competition never actually left.

(Chart from Blockchain .com)