Riot Platforms signs $9.1bn, 20-year lease with Anthropic for 191MW Texas data center capacity

US-based Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms has entered into a landmark 20-year lease agreement valued at $9.1 billion, under which it will provide 191MW of data center capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus to a leading frontier AI laboratory. Bloomberg later identified the tenant as Anthropic, citing sources familiar with the matter, although neither Riot nor Anthropic issued formal confirmation at the time of reporting.

The agreement marks a significant strategic shift for Riot, which has been steadily repositioning itself from a pure-play Bitcoin miner into a large-scale data center developer. The lease carries an initial 20-year term, with two five-year extension options that could raise the total contract value to $16.5 billion if fully exercised. Of the 191MW total capacity, 96MW is scheduled to come online in December 2027, with full deployment expected by June 2028.

To fund early development costs, Riot has secured a $573 million interim financing facility from Morgan Stanley, which will bridge funding until an investment-grade credit backstop is finalized. The company said the financing structure underscores the scale and credit quality of the agreement.

“Today’s announcement of a landmark 20-year, 191MW data center lease with a leading frontier AI lab marks a defining moment in our evolution into a leading developer of large-scale data centers,” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot. “It builds directly on a strong second quarter, in which we completed delivery of the initial 25MW to AMD on time and on budget. In just over six months, Riot has now executed leases totaling 241MW of capacity, representing approximately $9.8 billion of long-term, contracted revenue with two of the most important companies in the AI ecosystem.”

Anthropic becomes the second tenant at Riot’s Rockdale campus, following a separate agreement with AMD announced in January 2026. That deal includes an initial deployment of 25MW of critical IT load capacity, delivered in phases beginning in January 2026, with another 25MW due the following year. The AMD agreement also includes an option to expand to up to 200MW of critical IT load capacity at the same site.

The leasing announcement coincided with Riot’s Q2 2026 financial results. The company reported revenue of $174.2 million for the quarter, a 14% increase year-over-year. Data center revenue reached $23.2 million, comprising $4.9 million in operating lease revenue and $18.3 million in tenant fit-out services. Riot also produced 1,587 Bitcoin during the quarter, up 161% from the same period last year.

Riot, formerly known as Riot Blockchain, operates more than 1,100 acres and 1.7GW of power capacity across two Texas facilities. It also owns two operational sites in Kentucky totaling 60MW, acquired through its purchase of Block Mining in July 2024, with potential to exceed 300MW at full build-out. The company has been exploring a pivot toward AI and high-performance computing data centers since 2024, and this latest deal signals accelerating momentum in that direction.

The agreement also highlights broader industry trends, as Bitcoin miners with substantial power and land assets increasingly position themselves as infrastructure providers for AI workloads. For Riot, the deal provides a long-term, contracted revenue stream that diversifies its business model beyond cryptocurrency mining. For Anthropic, the lease secures critical compute capacity in a competitive market where access to large-scale data center space has become a strategic priority among frontier AI developers.