Hut 8 Surges 21% on $7 Billion Pivot from Crypto to AI Infrastructure
The bitcoin miner strikes a landmark 15-year deal to build and operate a massive data center for prominent AI firm Anthropic, with financial backing from Google.
Hut 8 Corp. shares surged as much as 21% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the company, primarily known as a bitcoin miner, announced a transformative, multi-billion dollar deal to build and operate a data center for the prominent artificial intelligence firm Anthropic.
The strategic pivot into the booming AI infrastructure sector sent the company's stock to $44.20 in early trading, adding over $660 million to its market valuation. The move signals a major diversification for the $3.8 billion company away from the volatile cryptocurrency market.
At the core of the deal is a 15-year lease agreement with Fluidstack, a hyperscale infrastructure provider, to deploy and operate an AI data center at Hut 8's River Bend campus in Louisiana. According to the official announcement, the initial phase of the contract is valued at approximately $7.0 billion over its 15-year term.
Underscoring the deal's significance, Google is providing a financial backstop for Fluidstack's lease obligations, a detail that provided a major boost to investor confidence by mitigating counterparty risk.
Hut 8 will initially develop 245 megawatts (MW) of capacity for Anthropic, a leading developer of large language models and a competitor to OpenAI. The agreement includes substantial expansion options, with a right of first offer for an additional 1,000 MW at the Louisiana site and potential for a further 1,050 MW at other locations, bringing the total potential capacity to nearly 2,300 MW.
The company projects the initial 245 MW lease will generate an average of $454 million in annual net operating income, contributing a cumulative $6.9 billion over the base term. This provides Hut 8 with a stable, long-term revenue stream, a stark contrast to the price-dependent and unpredictable revenue from its legacy bitcoin mining operations.
This partnership marks a landmark transition for Hut 8, leveraging its core expertise in developing and managing energy-intensive, large-scale computing facilities—a skill set highly transferable from digital asset mining to the power-hungry demands of AI training and inference. The move is seen by analysts as a shrewd use of its infrastructure assets and operational know-how to capitalize on the secular growth trend in artificial intelligence.
The initial build-out will take place at Hut 8's River Bend campus in St. Francisville, Louisiana, an under-development site with access to significant power capacity. The deal positions Hut 8 not just as a crypto miner, but as a key emerging player in the digital infrastructure landscape that underpins the entire AI economy. Strong analyst sentiment surrounds the company, with 15 analysts rating the stock as a Buy or Strong Buy against zero holds or sells, holding an average price target of $56.12.