Hut 8 shares jump over 30% on news of $9.8 billion AI data center lease

Hut 8 (HUT) shares surged nearly 30% Wednesday as the company announced a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease tied to a large-scale AI data center project in Texas. Hut 8 also said the lease structure includes options that could increase total contract value to about $25.1 billion if all renewal terms are exercised.

The Beacoin Point campus was originally intended for bitcoin mining but was repositioned for AI infrastructure as demand for high-performance computing capacity accelerated, Hut 8 said.

The company’s pivot comes at a time when publicly listed bitcoin miners face increasingly challenging economics as they face losses of approximately $19,000 per coin produced, and are rapidly pivoting toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure. More than $70 billion contracts have been signed, and some miners could derive up to 70% of their revenue from AI by the end of 2026

Hut 8 said it has commercialized the first phase of its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County through a 352-megawatt (MW) IT capacity lease with a high-investment-gerade tenant. The agreement supports AI training and inference workloads and marks Hut 8’s second major AI data center deal.

The lease brings hut 8’s total contracted AI data center capacity to 597 MW, with aggregate base-term contract value reaching about $16.8 billion. The company said it expects the Beacon Point lease to contribute roughly %655 billion in annual net operating income once stabilized.

Hut 8 said the new funding stream will support its AI infrastructure platform, including development of additional capacity at Beacon Point and growth across its broader pipeline. The campus has secured 1,000 MW of utility capacity, with initial energization expected in Q1 2027.

“Beacon Point underscores why we start with power and maintain flexibility across end markets,” said Chief Executive Asher Genoot. “Operating across multiple applications lets us underwrite assets that single-use-case developers cannot, then redirect them toward higher-value commercialization pathways as demand evolves.”

The company said the project is designed to NVIDIA’s DSX reference architecture and will be developed with partners including American Electric Power, Vertiv and Jacobs. Initial delivery of the first data hall is expected by Q3 2027, it added.