Anthropic has entered into a $9.1 billion data center lease agreement with Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner. The deal involves 191 megawatts of power at Riot's Rockdale site in Texas, enough to power approximately 143,000 homes, according to Bloomberg. The lease spans 20 years with two potential extensions, potentially increasing the total value to $16.1 billion. Riot will construct the data center according to Anthropic's specifications, providing the infrastructure, power, cooling, and operations, while Anthropic will supply its own servers and AI chips. The first 96 megawatts are scheduled to become operational in December 2027, with the remaining capacity coming online in June 2028. This agreement marks another significant infrastructure commitment for Anthropic, which is also investing heavily in other data center projects with major tech partners.

The lease agreement was disclosed by Riot alongside its quarterly earnings report, though the tenant was initially described only as a 'leading frontier AI lab.' Bloomberg cited unnamed sources confirming the deal's details. The arrangement underscores Anthropic's growing reliance on dedicated infrastructure to support its AI development efforts. The company is also paying SpaceX an estimated $1.25 billion monthly through May 2029 for the Colossus 1 data center and plans to deploy two gigawatts of AMD GPUs. Amazon is investing up to $25 billion and building up to five gigawatts of Trainium capacity with Anthropic, while Google and Broadcom are set to provide additional TPU capacity starting in 2027. A six-year, $10 billion contract with Volta Infra further complements Anthropic's infrastructure strategy.

Riot Platforms disclosed the lease agreement a day before its quarterly earnings report, though it initially did not name the tenant. The company has been expanding its data center operations, leveraging its Bitcoin mining expertise to secure long-term infrastructure deals with major AI firms. The Rockdale site is a key part of this expansion, offering the power and scalability needed to support Anthropic's AI initiatives. The deal reflects a broader trend of AI companies securing dedicated infrastructure to meet their computational demands.

Source: thedecoder