July 20 (Reuters) – Hut 8, a crypto-mining turned AI data center company, said on Monday it has signed a second 15-year lease worth $9.8 billion with an existing investment-grade customer, fully commercializing its 1-gigawatt Beacon Point campus in Texas.
Shares of the company rose about 14% in early trading. The shares, as of last close, had nearly doubled this year.
Like several former bitcoin miners, Hut 8 has pivoted toward AI infrastructure, seeking to leverage power assets and data center expertise developed during the cryptocurrency boom to serve AI customers.
Demand for compute infrastructure has accelerated since the launch of generative AI services, prompting technology companies to commit hundreds of billions of dollars toward data centers packed with advanced chips from Nvidia and others.
The rush has shifted competition beyond semiconductors to power, transmission access and construction-ready sites, making electricity availability one of the industry's biggest constraints.
The new agreement covers 352 megawatts of IT capacity and doubles the unnamed tenant's total contracted footprint at the site to 704 MW. Hut 8 said the campus now has a base-term contract value of $19.6 billion over 15 years, rising to as much as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.
Total contracted AI data center capacity across Hut 8's portfolio has increased to 949 MW, backed by 1,330 MW of utility capacity, with aggregate base-term contract value reaching $26.6 billion, according to the company. All of the contracted capacity is leased to, or backed by, investment-grade counterparties.
Hut 8 said it redesigned the first data hall at Beacon Point around Nvidia's architecture, increasing capacity by 57% within the same land and utility footprint. The existing tenant subsequently doubled its contracted capacity at the campus.
Hut 8 expects to begin delivering the first Phase 2 data hall in the second quarter of 2028.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)
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