Anthropic Leases Riot's Texas Data Center in $9.1B Deal
Anthropic locks in 191 MW at Riot's Rockdale, Texas site under a 20-year lease — $9.1B base value, up to $16.1B with extensions through 2048.
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At a glance
- 191 MW of IT capacity in Rockdale, Texas — 20-year term through June 2048
- $9.1B base value; up to $16.1B with two 5-year extension options
- First 96 MW delivered December 2027, full build-out by June 2028
- Morgan Stanley providing $573M in interim financing
- Riot now holds 241 MW contracted capacity and ~$9.8B expected revenue
The next billion-dollar deal in the AI infrastructure race: Riot Platforms, which started life as a bitcoin miner, has signed a 20-year lease for 191 megawatts of critical IT capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus. Bloomberg reports the tenant is Anthropic — Riot itself officially refers only to a “frontier AI lab.” The base value of the contract is roughly $9.1 billion through June 2048.
With two optional five-year extensions, the total could reach $16.1 billion. The first 96 megawatts are slated for delivery in December 2027, with the full 191 MW online by June 2028. Morgan Stanley is providing $573 million in interim financing, and Riot projects net operating income of $365–411 million per year over the base term.
The deal fits Anthropic's aggressive capacity strategy: in July the company signed a $19 billion lease with TeraWulf in Kentucky, on top of the AMD partnership announced the same month covering up to 2 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs and an AMD investment of up to $5 billion.
For Riot, the contract completes its pivot from bitcoin mining to AI data center operator. Combined with an existing 50 MW deployment for AMD, the company now has 241 MW of contracted capacity and about $9.8 billion in expected revenue. In parallel, Riot signed a letter of intent for a 1-gigawatt project in Corsicana, Texas, with an unnamed tenant.
The takeaway: frontier labs are locking up long-term power capacity almost weekly — whoever wants to train in 2028 has to lease in 2026. Converting former crypto sites with ready grid connections into AI campuses is likely to remain the pattern.
FAQ
Why does Anthropic lease instead of building?
Leasing ready sites with grid connections is years faster than building — and Rockdale, as a former mining site, was already hooked up to power.
Is the tenant officially confirmed?
Riot only names a “frontier AI lab”; Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that it is Anthropic.
What does this mean for Texas?
With Rockdale, Corsicana and other projects, Texas is becoming the center of gravity for US AI infrastructure — cheap power and fast permitting are pulling in billions.
