Riot Platforms shares rose by over 13% after it announced that it has secured a $311 million data center lease with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). In the same announcement, Riot disclosed that it had acquired 200 acres of land that it currently occupies a t Ro ckdale, Texas, facility for $96 million. The company funded this purchase entirely by selling about 1,080 bitcoin (BTC) from its balance sheet. Under the agreement with AMD, the Bitcoin miner will deliver 25 megawatts (MW) of critical IT load capacity at Rockdale in phases beginning this month and completing in May. The initial 10-year lease is expected to generate a contract revenue of around $311 million. It also comes with three optional five-year extensions that could push total revenue to $1 billion. AMD also holds expansion rights for an additional 75 MW and a right of first refusal for another 100 MW, which can bring its total leased capacity to 200 MW. Riot cashes in on Texas infrastructure Jason Les, CEO of Riot, said the partnership with AMD “firmly establishes Rockdale as a leading data center development opportunity” and positions Riot for substantial long-term value creation. Les also stated, “This partnership represents a validation of Riot’s infrastructure, development capabilities, the attractiveness of our sites, our readily available power capacity, and our ability to offer innovative solutions to meet the requirements of top-tier tenants.” The Rockdale site features a 700 MW interconnection to the grid, a dedicated water supply, and fiber connectivity. Combined with its Corsicana facility, Riot now controls over 1,100 acres and 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity across Texas, anchoring what the company describes as an “unrivaled” position in the state’s major urban corridor. Hasmukh Ranjan, chief information officer at AMD, said the chip maker was “excited to work with Riot, whose capabilities, power availability, and high-density solutions align with our infrastructure roadmap.” Why are miners pivoting to AI/HPC? Dwindling revenue following the 2024 Bitcoin halving event and increased operational costs have pushed companies from all-in BTC mining to alternative sources of revenue in high-performance computing (HPC) and AI. IREN secured a big-time $9.7 billion deal with Microsoft in November 2025. In September, former Ethereum-focused miner CoreWeave expanded its deal with OpenAI to $6.5 billion, taking the whole deal to around $22.4 billion. CoreWeave struck a deal to acquire Bitcoin miner Core Scientific for $9 billion. However, the deal fell through after the shareholders rejected the offer. Bitfarms and CleanSpark recently saw their stocks rise thanks to their respective announcements that they were expanding their footprint in the US with regard to HPC/AI. They add to the field, which is seeing more former miners compete for limited power resources and technology partnerships. Riot’s retrofit capital expenditure for the initial AMD deployment totals $89.8 million, representing $3.6 million per MW of critical IT load capacity. The company expects the lease to generate an average net operating income of $25 million per year once operational. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .
