Riot Platforms, one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, is accelerating its transformation into an artificial intelligence infrastructure provider after signing a massive 20-year data center lease agreement worth approximately $9.1 billion with an unnamed “leading frontier AI lab.” Bloomberg reported that the customer is Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of AI models, although Riot has not publicly confirmed the tenant’s identity.
The agreement will provide the AI company with 191 megawatts of IT capacity at Riot’s Rockdale, Texas campus and could ultimately generate as much as $16.1 billion if two optional five-year extensions are exercised. Investors reacted immediately, sending Riot’s Nasdaq-listed shares more than 25% higher in after-hours trading following the announcement.
Under the agreement, Riot will develop and lease 191 megawatts of critical computing capacity at its massive Rockdale data center campus in Texas.
The contract is expected to remain in place through June 2048 and generate approximately $9.1 billion in contracted revenue over its initial term.
Two additional five-year extension options could potentially increase the total contract value to approximately $16.1 billion.
The infrastructure will be delivered in phases.
Riot expects the first 96 megawatts to become available by December 2027, followed by the complete 191-megawatt deployment by June 2028.
Riot has not officially identified its customer, describing the company only as a “leading frontier AI lab.”
However, Bloomberg reported that the tenant is Anthropic, the AI company responsible for Claude. The Block said it contacted Riot seeking confirmation following Bloomberg’s report.
The agreement would give Anthropic access to another major source of computing infrastructure as AI companies compete to secure the enormous amounts of electricity, data center space and computing hardware required to train and operate increasingly powerful AI models.
Wall Street reacted strongly to the announcement.
Riot shares initially closed regular Monday trading down 5.46%, but the stock reversed sharply following the news and surged 25.26% in after-hours trading to approximately $24.30.
The reaction illustrates how investors are increasingly assigning additional value to former pure-play Bitcoin miners capable of repurposing their enormous power portfolios for AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.
That business model could provide miners with a second major revenue stream that does not depend directly on Bitcoin’s price, network difficulty or block rewards.
Building infrastructure capable of supporting frontier AI workloads requires significant capital.
Riot said it secured a $573 million interim financing facility from Morgan Stanley to help cover initial development costs while the company works to finalize an investment-grade credit backstop for the project.
The financing will support Riot as it converts additional portions of its Texas power infrastructure into the specialized data center facilities required by AI companies.
This isn’t Riot’s first major move into AI infrastructure.
The company signed an earlier agreement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in January. Riot has already delivered the first 25 megawatts of capacity associated with that relationship.
Between the AMD agreement and its latest AI customer, Riot has now executed leases totaling 241 megawatts of capacity.
According to Riot CEO Jason Les, those agreements represent approximately $9.8 billion in long-term contracted revenue with two major companies in the AI ecosystem.
Riot’s expansion reflects a much larger transformation occurring throughout the Bitcoin mining industry.
Bitcoin miners already possess something AI companies desperately need — large amounts of electrical capacity and data center infrastructure.
AI companies require enormous amounts of electricity to train and operate frontier models. Building entirely new data center campuses can take years because companies must secure land, power agreements, grid connections and regulatory approvals.
Large Bitcoin miners have already completed much of that work.
Riot says its competitive advantage includes approved and energized multi-gigawatt-scale power capacity, internal data center development capabilities and the ability to build specialized infrastructure for demanding computing workloads.
The company’s latest financial results demonstrate that its diversification beyond Bitcoin mining has already started contributing meaningful revenue.
For the second quarter ending June 30, Riot reported $174.2 million in total revenue, representing approximately 14% growth from $153 million during the same quarter last year.
Its emerging data center business contributed $23.2 million, primarily reflecting the initial 25 megawatts delivered to AMD. Riot nevertheless reported a net loss for the quarter.
The reported Anthropic agreement could dramatically increase the importance of data centers within Riot’s overall business as additional capacity comes online.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocy exchange by trading volume, has announced it will permanently shut…
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is warning that AI models could soon become capable of copying…
French cryptocy hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has unveiled the Ledger Atom, an Android-powered device that…
Mastercard has officially launched its Global Money Platform, combining traditional currencies and stablecoins into a…
Cryptocy hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has ordered resellers and distributors across seven Asian markets to…
Richard Heart, the controversial founder of HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, was reportedly arrested in Istanbul,…