Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms announced that it has signed a 20-year data center leasing agreement with a "leading frontier AI lab." During the contract term, it is expected to generate about $9.1 billion in revenue. After the news was released, Riot's stock surged more than 25% in after-hours trading, and market attention quickly shifted to the company's AI data center transformation and rollout plan.
Riot said the agreement covers up to 191 megawatts (MW) of IT computing capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus. The contract expires in June 2048 and includes two 5-year renewal options. If all options are exercised, the potential total contract value could be as high as $16.1 billion.
Capacity will be delivered in phases: the first batch of 96 MW is expected to begin operations in December 2027, and the full 191 MW construction will be completed by June 2028. To cover early development costs, Riot has secured $573 million in transitional financing provided by Morgan Stanley, and is also in talks for investment-grade credit guarantees.
Although Riot has not disclosed its partner, (Bloomberg) reported earlier that this “leading AI laboratory” is the AI company Anthropic that is developing Claude.
A major positive catalyst instantly ignited market enthusiasm. During regular trading hours on Monday, Riot’s stock price listed on the Nasdaq was down 5.46%, but after the contract was revealed, the stock surged 25.26% in after-hours trading to $24.30.
Riot’s second AI data center deal this year
This is Riot’s second major win in the AI space this year. The company signed a landmark partnership agreement with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in January.
Riot CEO Jason Les said that in just a little more than half a year, the company has already signed data center lease agreements totaling 241 MW, representing about $9.8 billion in long-term contract revenue. The counterparties include two major companies in the AI industry.
Jason Les noted that Riot’s advantages over competitors mainly come from three areas: it has obtained full approvals and connected to the power grid, with power capacity in the tens of gigawatts (GW); it has internal data center development capabilities; and it can customize infrastructure designs to meet high-load demands such as high-performance computing.
Revenue growth cannot conceal the second-quarter loss
Notably, while Riot announced a major AI order, it also released its second-quarter financial results. Total revenue reached $174.2 million, up 14% from $153 million in the same period last year. Of that, the data center business contributed $23.2 million, mainly due to successfully delivering the first batch of 25 MW of capacity to AMD.
In its core business, Bitcoin mining revenue was $113.7 million, while engineering revenue rose to $37.3 million. Riot produced 1,587 bitcoins in the second quarter this year; by the end of the quarter, the company held more than $1.2 billion in current assets, including 11,380 bitcoins and $548.9 million in cash.
However, Riot’s net loss for the second quarter totaled $237.2 million (diluted loss per share of $0.68), compared with net profit of $219.5 million in the second quarter of 2025 (earnings per share of $0.58), showing a shift from profit to loss.
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Original headline: (Riot reportedly signs a $9.1 billion AI deal with Anthropic; after-hours stock price jumps more than 25%)
Original author: Crypto Sister Mel
“Report: Signs a $9.1 billion deal with Anthropic! Bitcoin miner Riot wins two deals in 2024, and AMD is also a customer.” The article was first published on “Crypto City”