Key Takeaways
Riot Platforms signed a 20-year, $9.1 billion deal to supply Anthropic with 191 megawatts of computing capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus, sending Riot shares up more than 20 percent premarket Tuesday.
Two five-year extension options could lift the total contract value to $16.1 billion, with full deployment expected by June 2028.
The deal is Anthropic's third major compute commitment in three months, and the third bitcoin miner in recent weeks to pivot toward AI infrastructure revenue.
Riot Platforms said Tuesday it signed a $9.1 billion, 20-year agreement with Anthropic to supply 191 megawatts of computing capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus, according to Bitcoin.com News, which cited Bloomberg reporting that identified Anthropic as the previously unnamed "leading frontier AI lab" in Riot's announcement. Riot shares jumped more than 20 percent before US markets opened.
The math is worth sitting with. Two optional five-year extensions could push total contract value to $16.1 billion, and Riot projects the base term alone will generate between $7.3 billion and $8.2 billion in cumulative net operating income, roughly $365 million to $411 million a year. Deployment starts with 96 megawatts by December 2027 and reaches the full 191 megawatts by June 2028, with Morgan Stanley providing $573 million in interim financing, per CoinDesk.
"This marks a defining moment in our evolution into a leading developer of large-scale data centers," Riot CEO Jason Les said, per Bitcoin.com News. The deal follows Riot's AMD lease, bringing its contracted AI capacity at Rockdale to 241 megawatts, roughly $9.8 billion in long-term revenue. Riot's second quarter data center revenue reached $23.2 million while bitcoin mining revenue fell to $113.7 million from $140.9 million a year earlier, and the company has been selling monthly bitcoin production to help fund the buildout.
The pattern keeps repeating. Anthropic signed a $10 billion deal with Volta Infra at a Bitdeer-operated Norway site last week, and the arrangement echoes the $500 billion Wall Street financing coalition Nvidia announced Monday. Miners are discovering their power connections are worth more than their mining rigs, and AI labs are discovering that stablecoin-scale numbers are becoming the industry's new normal, a shift we have also tracked in the institutional crypto buildout moving ahead of Congress.
People Also Ask
What did Anthropic and Riot Platforms agree to?
A 20-year deal for Anthropic to use 191 megawatts of computing capacity at Riot's Rockdale, Texas campus, worth $9.1 billion in the base term and up to $16.1 billion with extensions.
Why is a bitcoin miner building AI data centers?
Riot has established power connections, land and cooling infrastructure at its mining sites, letting it serve AI customers faster than developers building from scratch, and AI leases offer steadier revenue than volatile bitcoin mining income.
How much is Anthropic spending on computing capacity overall?
The Riot deal is Anthropic's third major compute commitment in roughly three months, following a $10 billion deal with Volta Infra, part of a broader industry pattern of AI labs locking in long-term capacity.
When will the Riot-Anthropic data center be fully operational?
Riot plans to deliver 96 megawatts by December 2027 and the full 191 megawatts by June 2028.