Riot Platforms said it has signed a 20-year data center lease with what it called a leading frontier AI lab, a contract the Bitcoin miner expects to generate about $9.1 billion in revenue over its term. The announcement quickly shifted attention to Riot’s push into AI data center infrastructure, and the stock jumped more than 25% in after-hours trading.
Deal covers 191 MW at Rockdale campus in Texas
According to Riot, the agreement covers up to 191 megawatts of IT capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus in the United States. The lease runs through June 2048 and includes two five-year renewal options. If both are exercised, the contract’s potential total value could reach as much as $16.1 billion.
The capacity will be delivered in phases. The first 96 MW is expected to come online in December 2027, and the full 191 MW buildout is scheduled for completion in June 2028.
Bridge financing in place as Bloomberg points to Anthropic
To cover upfront development costs, Riot said it has secured $573 million in bridge financing from Morgan Stanley. The company is also discussing investment-grade credit support.
Riot did not disclose the customer. Bloomberg reported earlier that the unnamed frontier AI lab is Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude.
Stock reverses after regular-session drop
Riot shares, listed on Nasdaq, had closed the regular Monday session down 5.46%. After the contract became public, the stock surged 25.26% in after-hours trading to $24.30.
Second major AI data center win this year
This is Riot’s second major AI-related data center win this year. In January, the company signed a separate partnership agreement with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD.
Chief Executive Officer Jason Les said Riot has signed data center lease agreements totaling 241 MW in a little more than half a year, representing about $9.8 billion in long-term contract revenue. He said the counterparties include two important companies in the AI industry.
Les said Riot’s edge over competitors comes from three main factors: fully approved and grid-connected power capacity measured in the multi-gigawatt range, in-house data center development capability, and the ability to design infrastructure around high-load requirements such as high-performance computing.
Revenue rose in the second quarter, but earnings turned negative
Riot released the AI contract announcement alongside its second-quarter results. Total revenue reached $174.2 million, up 14% from $153 million a year earlier. Of that, the data center business contributed $23.2 million, driven mainly by the delivery of the first 25 MW of capacity to AMD.
In its core operations, Bitcoin mining revenue came in at $113.7 million, while engineering revenue climbed to $37.3 million. Riot produced 1,587 BTC in the second quarter. At the end of the quarter, the company held more than $1.2 billion in liquid assets, including 11,380 BTC and $548.9 million in cash.
Still, Riot posted a net loss of $237.2 million for the quarter, or $0.68 per diluted share. That compares with net income of $219.5 million, or $0.58 per share, in the second quarter of 2025, marking a swing from profit to loss.