The former bitcoin miner will develop up to 2,295 megawatts of AI compute capacity at its River Bend campus in Louisiana under a 15-year lease backed by Google, marking the largest single infrastructure deal in the crypto mining industry's pivot to artificial intelligence.
Hut 8, the Nasdaq-listed company that built its business on bitcoin mining, has signed a 15-year lease valued at $7 billion with AI infrastructure provider Fluidstack to develop hyperscale data centre capacity for Anthropic at its River Bend campus in Louisiana. The deal, which sent Hut 8 shares surging 25% in pre-market trading, represents the single largest infrastructure commitment yet in the accelerating migration of crypto mining companies toward artificial intelligence workloads.
Under the agreement, Hut 8 will develop and deliver an initial 245 megawatts of IT capacity supported by 330 megawatts of utility power, with Fluidstack holding a right of first offer to expand up to 2,295 megawatts across future phases of the campus. Google, through its parent company Alphabet, is providing a financial backstop that covers lease payments and related obligations in the event that Fluidstack is unable to fulfil its commitments. The first data hall is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2027, with additional capacity coming online through the remainder of that year.
The Financial Architecture
The deal's financial structure reflects the institutional-grade capital now flowing into AI infrastructure through former crypto mining operations. Hut 8 expects the lease to generate cumulative net operating income of $6.9 billion over the base term, translating to an average annual NOI contribution of $454 million. J.P. Morgan is serving as lead left loan underwriter, with Goldman Sachs participating, and the financing is expected to cover up to 85% of the loan-to-cost ratio.
The total contract value could reach $17.7 billion if Fluidstack exercises all expansion options. This would make River Bend one of the largest single-site AI compute facilities in the United States, rivalling hyperscale campuses operated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot described the deal as the first domino to fall in what he expects will be a series of large-scale AI infrastructure agreements leveraging the company's existing power assets and development expertise.
Anthropic's involvement adds strategic significance to the transaction. The AI company, whose run-rate revenue has surpassed $30 billion, recently announced a separate multi-gigawatt partnership with Google and Broadcom for next-generation TPU capacity. The Fluidstack lease at River Bend is designed to provide Anthropic with dedicated GPU compute infrastructure complementing its TPU-based workloads, giving the company a diversified hardware portfolio as it scales training and inference operations.
The Economics Driving the Pivot
The Hut 8 deal crystallises a structural shift that has been building across the bitcoin mining industry for more than a year. With bitcoin trading around $69,000, network difficulty at all-time highs, and the April 2024 halving having cut block rewards to 3.125 BTC, pure-play mining economics have become increasingly challenging. Energy costs, the single largest variable expense for miners, are rising as AI data centres compete for the same grid connections, land, and cheap electricity that miners have traditionally relied upon.
The numbers increasingly favour AI hosting over bitcoin mining. According to analysis from Bernstein, a bitcoin miner generating $0.06 per kilowatt-hour from mining can earn $0.12 to $0.18 per kWh by leasing the same capacity for AI compute — a two to three times improvement in revenue per unit of power consumed. This differential explains why nearly every major publicly traded bitcoin miner has either announced or executed an AI diversification strategy in 2026.
Hut 8's transformation has been among the most aggressive. The company has spent the past year repositioning itself as an energy infrastructure platform that also mines bitcoin, rather than a mining company that happens to own power assets. Its River Bend campus in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, was originally acquired for its proximity to cheap hydroelectric and natural gas power — the same attributes that now make it attractive for AI workloads that demand consistent, low-cost electricity at massive scale.
Google's Expanding Role as AI Backstop
Google's financial guarantee is a notable feature of the transaction and part of a broader pattern. The technology giant has taken similar backstop positions in AI infrastructure deals involving TeraWulf and Cipher Mining, two other former bitcoin miners pivoting to AI hosting. In each case, Google has agreed to absorb capacity or pay termination fees if the primary lessee defaults, effectively underwriting the credit risk that would otherwise make such large-scale development projects difficult to finance.
The arrangement reflects Google's strategic urgency to secure physical compute capacity ahead of what the company projects will be a multi-year surge in AI demand. By backstopping deals at former mining sites, Google gains access to developed power infrastructure and environmental permits that would take years to replicate through greenfield construction. For lenders like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, Google's investment-grade credit rating transforms what would otherwise be speculative development financing into near-sovereign-quality debt.
Competitive Landscape and Industry Implications
Hut 8's deal is the latest in a series of transactions that are rapidly redrawing the boundaries between the crypto mining and AI infrastructure industries. Core Scientific signed a $3.5 billion agreement with CoreWeave in late 2025, while IREN and CleanSpark have both announced smaller-scale AI hosting arrangements. The aggregate value of AI infrastructure deals involving former bitcoin miners now exceeds $20 billion, according to estimates from The Block Research.
The shift raises questions about the long-term implications for bitcoin's hash rate and network security. If mining companies continue redirecting power capacity toward AI, the network's total hash rate could plateau or decline, potentially affecting transaction confirmation times and the decentralisation of mining operations. Bitcoin maximalists have warned that the AI pivot represents a short-term financial optimisation that could undermine the infrastructure supporting the network itself.
What to Watch
The immediate milestones for the Hut 8 deal include securing final construction financing, which Genoot has indicated should close by mid-2026, and breaking ground on the first data hall at River Bend. Investors will also be watching for additional lease announcements, as Genoot's characterisation of the deal as a first domino suggests that Hut 8 is in active negotiations with other AI companies for capacity at its remaining development sites. The broader industry will be monitoring whether bitcoin's price trajectory can shift the mining-versus-AI economic calculus back in favour of dedicated mining operations, though current market conditions suggest the AI premium is likely to persist.
