Riot Platforms laid out a concrete shift toward AI infrastructure on Friday, pairing a land purchase in Texas with a long-term lease agreement with AMD. The company said it acquired land at its 200-acre Rockdale site in Milam County for $96 million, with the entire purchase funded through the sale of roughly 1,080 bitcoin from its balance sheet. RIOT shares were up nearly 11% in active early trading after the announcement.
AMD signs on as Riot’s first hyperscale tenant
At the same time, Riot entered into a long-term Data Center Lease and Services Agreement with AMD, giving the miner its first hyperscale data center tenant. The initial lease covers 25 MW of critical IT load and will be delivered in phases using retrofitted existing buildings. Delivery is scheduled to begin in January 2026 and finish in May 2026.
The agreement carries an initial term of 10 years and is expected to generate about $311 million in revenue for Riot. If AMD exercises its options, total contract revenue could reach $1 billion. The deal adds to a broader pattern in which bitcoin miners are reworking their business models to capture rising demand for AI-linked data center capacity.
Texas footprint now exceeds 1,100 acres
According to the company’s press release, Riot now owns and manages more than 1,100 acres and 1.7 GW of power capacity across its two Texas facilities, which are located about 100 miles apart. Riot described those assets as forming a strong position in the “Texas Triangle,” the cluster of major urban centers bounded by Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
The structure of the announcement matters. Riot did not just outline a plan; it tied together land ownership, bitcoin-funded capital deployment, existing-building retrofits and a signed tenant agreement with a major chipmaker. That puts the company’s AI infrastructure move into an execution phase tied to contracted revenue and a fixed delivery timeline.