Shares of Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT | RIOT Price Prediction) are up 17% to $22.64 Tuesday morning after the company disclosed a landmark AI data center lease alongside its latest quarterly report. The move follows an after-hours surge of more than 25% on Monday, when Riot Platforms stock had closed the regular session down 5.46%.
The catalyst is a 20-year co-location agreement at Riot Platforms’ Rockdale, Texas campus, supplying 191 MW of critical IT capacity to an unnamed “leading frontier AI lab,” which Bloomberg identified as Anthropic. The lease is expected to generate about $9.1 billion of contract revenue through June 2048, with two five-year extension options that could raise total potential value to about $16.1 billion.
Combined with an existing lease with Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Riot Platforms now controls 241 MW of contracted capacity and roughly $9.8 billion of long-term contracted revenue, cementing its pivot from a pure Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) miner into a large-scale data center developer. The scale of that backlog is what has traders repricing the stock as an AI infrastructure play rather than a pure crypto miner.
Anthropic Lease Anchors the Move
Delivery under the new lease is staged: 96 IT MW by December 2027 and the full 191 IT MW by June 2028. Morgan Stanley is providing $573 million of interim financing while Riot Platforms finalizes a permanent credit backstop for the buildout.
CEO Jason Les, announcing the transaction, stated, “Today’s announcement of a landmark 20-year, 191-megawatt 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.” He added that Riot Platforms has now executed 241 MW of leases with two of the most important companies in the AI ecosystem.
The quarterly print is more mixed. Riot Platforms’ revenue rose 14% year over year to $174.2 million, but the company swung to a net loss of $237.2 million (about $0.68 per diluted share) from a year-ago profit, with negative adjusted EBITDA. Traders are clearly focused on the multi-year revenue backlog rather than the current-quarter loss.
Moreover, the analyst reaction was swift. Bernstein raised its Riot Platforms stock price target to $35 from $30, with an Outperform rating, citing the Anthropic lease and a non-binding letter of intent covering Riot Platforms’ 1 GW Corsicana site. Citi lifted its target to $32 from $28, with a Buy rating, calling the Q2 report “transformational,” and Piper Sandler moved to $25 from $23, with an Overweight rating.
Peers Catch a Sympathy Bid
Former Bitcoin miners repositioning as AI and HPC infrastructure operators are catching a modest read-through rather than their own news. IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) shares are up 2% to $39.58, Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) shares are up 2% to $29.56, and TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF) shares are up 2% to $16.58.
The muted response across the group underscores that today’s move is a single-name event driven by Riot Platforms’ specific contract, not a broader sector rerating. The Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (NASDAQ:DTCR) is up just 1% to $28.25, reinforcing that read.
The DTCR ETF is a narrow thematic fund heavily concentrated in data-center REITs and digital infrastructure names, so single-miner news dilutes quickly. It’s also unleveraged, which is worth noting for investors weighing sector-concentration risk in their exposure to the theme.
What to Watch
Market watchers can watch for follow-through on Riot Platforms’ Corsicana LOI conversion, updates on the permanent credit facility that would replace the Morgan Stanley bridge, and construction milestones ahead of the December 2027 initial Anthropic delivery. Riot Platforms stock could, in the coming weeks and months, reach its $29.66 analyst target price now that the shares are well above $20.
Options positioning tilts constructive, with Riot Platforms’ full-chain put/call ratio at 0.63 and Reddit sentiment on the r/wallstreetbets deal thread scoring 78, bullish. Momentum traders can keep this one active into the close, but the mixed Q2 print and heavy prior insider selling argue for measured position sizing rather than chasing.
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