Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has signed a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease agreement for the first phase of its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Nueces County, Texas. The lease covers 352 MW of IT capacity with an undisclosed high-investment-grade partner, dedicated to large-scale AI training and inference workloads. This deal increases Hut 8's contracted AI data center capacity to 597 MW, with total contract value reaching approximately $16.8 billion and an average annual net operating income of about $1.1 billion.
Lease Details and Timeline
AEP Texas has signed an interconnection agreement for the entire 1000 MW campus, with initial power expected by Q1 2027 and the first data hall delivery by Q3 2027. The agreement marks a strategic pivot for Hut 8 from traditional Bitcoin mining toward high-performance computing (HPC) and AI infrastructure, leveraging its existing energy assets.
Strategic Shift to AI
The move reflects surging institutional demand for AI compute power and miners' competitive advantages in energy and infrastructure. Hut 8 will continue its Bitcoin mining operations but is reallocating resources to high-margin AI hosting services amid post-halving industry pressures. Analysts view such partnerships as a new revenue stream for miners, alleviating concerns about hash rate overcapacity.