Hut 8 and IREN surge on $12.6B in AI data center contracts
In brief
- Hut 8 surged 17% after signing a $9.8 billion, 15-year lease for Beacon Point's Texas campus expansion
- IREN gained 19% on $2.8 billion in multiyear AI cloud services contracts and raised full-year guidance
- AI compute sector rebounded: Cipher Mining +11%, TeraWulf +6.4%, CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF +8.5%
Hut 8's Texas expansion
Hut 8 signed a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for the second phase of its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas. Hut 8 shares rose as much as 17% following the announcement.
The lease agreement doubles the tenant's footprint to 704 megawatts and fully commercializes the site's 1 gigawatt of power capacity. The deal locks in a single investment-grade customer for the entire second phase, removing near-term uncertainty about tenant demand at the expanded facility.
IREN's cloud services boom
IREN announced $2.8 billion in new multiyear cloud services contracts with AI developers and gained as much as 19% on the news. The company also raised its year-end AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target to more than $4 billion, signaling confidence in sustained customer demand. About 85% of that revenue is now under contract, providing visibility into near-term cash flow.
Sector-wide relief
The announcements lifted the broader AI infrastructure trade. Cipher Mining gained 11% and TeraWulf added 6.4%. Bitcoin miners Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings advanced 5% and 9%, respectively. The CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF rose 8.5%.
The gains came as a relief to investors who'd grown nervous. AI infrastructure companies had stumbled in recent weeks as investors questioned whether the industry's spending on data centers would continue. Sentiment cooled after Chinese firms released open-source AI models that appeared to require less computing power than Western rivals. Reports that Meta Platforms was considering a cloud service to rent AI computing capacity also raised questions about whether established AI compute providers faced new competition.
Monday's announcements pushed back against that narrative. Hut 8 and IREN's signed commitments demonstrated that demand for dedicated AI infrastructure remained robust among major cloud developers and enterprises. The deals suggest the data center buildout isn't slowing — it's accelerating.
"The share-price surge comes after AI infrastructure companies stumbled in recent weeks as investors questioned whether the industry's breakneck spending on data centers would continue." — CoinDesk reporting
