Riot Names Anthropic as Tenant of $28 Billion Texas Data Centre Lease

Riot announced the lease with its third-quarter results on November 4 but described the tenant only as "a leading Frontier AI Lab". The 10-Q filed the same day names Anthropic PBC and says the agreement was signed on October 28 and became effective and binding on November 4, after Riot's board approved it and third-party consultants signed off on the site's technical specifications.

The deal is one of the largest commitments yet by an AI developer to a former crypto miner's power and land, and it shows how Anthropic is securing capacity years ahead of need. It also exposes Riot to a financing obligation many times its current balance sheet: the company ended September with $950.2 million in cash and bitcoin.

Rent, Phases and the 12% Clause

The lease covers 910 megawatts of critical IT capacity on a 332-acre parcel. Under the filing, Anthropic pays base rent of $130 per kilowatt of capacity per month for each block delivered, rising 3% a year. Riot puts average annual rent at about $1.8 billion over the initial term, and says the contract would be worth about $54 billion if Anthropic exercises both of its five-year extension options. The lease is triple net, so Anthropic carries taxes, insurance, site expenses and electricity, and Riot said rent is due on the full 910 megawatts whether or not it is used.

Capacity is to arrive in 40 blocks across three phases. The filing targets the first block for June 28, 2027 and completion of the 400-megawatt first phase by September 11, 2027. A 200-megawatt second phase is due by January 28, 2028 and a 310-megawatt third phase by July 30, 2028.

The term that has drawn attention concerns the data centre modules Anthropic will install. Riot's subsidiary has agreed to reimburse those costs at up to $4.0 million per megawatt of capacity actually achieved, or roughly $3.6 billion across the site. That obligation depends on Riot obtaining financing "on market terms reasonably acceptable to it". If it cannot after commercially reasonable efforts, Riot will instead give Anthropic rent credits that repay the amount plus 12% annual interest over the rest of the initial term.

In its results release, Riot presented the same mechanism from the other side: the tenant would fund the reimbursements itself and recover them as a rent credit. Riot expects to pay for the modules with non-recourse project debt sized to the contracted rent. CoinDesk, which first highlighted the 12% term, said Riot plans to borrow 80% to 90% of the cost and launch the financing process in 2027. The publication said it had asked Riot how much rent would remain after deductions and what rate it is targeting on the debt.

Capital Needs and Bitcoin Sales

Riot estimates total capital costs at about $6 million per IT megawatt, or $5.5 billion, which it says is roughly half the capital intensity of a typical Tier 3 build. About $2 million per megawatt covers its own site and electrical work, to be funded from existing liquidity. "We do not currently anticipate issuing equity to fund our announced projects," chief executive Jason Les said.

Including an earlier lease at its Rockdale site with the same AI lab and a contract with AMD, Riot says it has now leased 1,151 megawatts of capacity, representing about $38 billion of long-term contracted revenue.

The shift is already reshaping Riot's accounts. Third-quarter revenue rose 1% to $181.4 million, of which $18.4 million came from data centres, and net income fell to $4.0 million from $104.5 million a year earlier. Riot reported a net loss of $733.6 million for the first nine months. CoinDesk reported that Riot sold 20,264 bitcoin for about $1.5 billion over that period, mostly to fund data centre development and repay a $200 million Coinbase loan, and that it expects to keep selling substantially all newly mined coins.

The first test of the arrangement comes in June 2027, when the first Corsicana block is due and Riot will need its project financing in place to avoid the 12% fallback.