Riot Platforms (RIOT) surged more than 20% before the start of U.S. equity trading on Tuesday after the bitcoin $BTC$64,196.96 miner said it signed a $9.1 billion deal with “a leading frontier AI lab,” accelerating its transformation into a provider of infrastructure for the artificial intelligence industry.
The 20-agreement with the company, identified as Anthropic by Bloomberg, covers 191 megawatts of computing capacity at Riot’s Rockdale, Texas, campus.
Once focused almost entirely on bitcoin mining, Riot exemplifies an industry-wide pivot toward AI infrastructure, with long-term leases providing steadier revenue than the volatile flows from approving blocks on Bitcoin.
Miners control large sites with established grid connections, land and cooling systems, allowing them to serve power-hungry AI customers faster than developers starting from scratch. Anthropic recently signed a six-year, $10 billion contract with Volta Infra for computing capacity at a site in Norway operated by bitcoin miner Bitdeer.
Deployment at the Riot sites starts in December 2027, with the full buildout expected by June 2028. Two five-year extension options could increase total contract revenue to $16.1 billion. Riot projects the base term will generate between $7.3 billion and $8.2 billion in cumulative net operating income.
