Riot Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: RIOT) shares rose 4.80% to $20.31 on Thursday as Bitcoin breached $72,000. The stock’s movement reflected broader crypto sector sentiment following a White House summit hosted by President Donald Trump.

Financial Performance

The company released its second-quarter results on Aug. 10, reporting total revenue of $174.2 million, a 14% increase year-over-year. This growth was driven by $23.2 million from its expanding data center business. Despite facing net loss pressures due to higher all-in mining costs, Riot maintained over $1.2 billion in liquid assets.

AI Infrastructure Deals

Alongside the earnings release, Riot announced a significant 20-year lease agreement with AI firm Anthropic. The deal covers 191 megawatts of power at its Rockdale, Texas campus. When combined with an existing agreement with AMD, the company has now secured 241 megawatts of capacity. This represents approximately $9.8 billion in long-term contracted revenue.

Management Perspective

CEO Jason Les emphasized that these long-term hosting deals mark a defining moment in Riot’s evolution into a large-scale data center developer. He noted that in just over six months, the firm has contracted major capacity with two significant companies in the AI ecosystem.

Les highlighted Riot’s competitive advantage, citing its fully approved gigawatt-scale power capacity, internal development expertise, and ability to engineer custom infrastructure. These elements position the firm to support compute’s most demanding workloads.

What the Numbers Show

The divergence between revenue growth and net profitability highlights a strategic transition. While total revenue grew 14% YoY, the company faced net loss pressures from higher mining costs. However, the $23.2 million contribution from data centers—roughly 13% of total revenue—signals an emerging offset to traditional mining volatility. The preservation of $1.2 billion in liquid assets amid these losses provides a buffer for capital-intensive infrastructure expansion.

JPMorgan estimates that Anthropic agreed to pay approximately $2.4 per watt per year for capacity at Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) Texas data center. This rate is about 33% above the bank's estimated industry average of $1.8 per watt per year, suggesting that ready-to-deploy AI infrastructure commands a significant premium as demand outpaces supply.

The pricing insight stems from Riot's newly signed 191-megawatt data center lease with Anthropic. The contract implies pricing well above prevailing market levels, reinforcing the view that companies building frontier AI models are willing to pay up for capacity that can be delivered quickly.

Deal Economics and Timeline

The base agreement spans 20 years and is expected to generate approximately $9.1 billion in total contract value. Two optional five-year extensions could increase the potential value to $16.1 billion. Riot plans to deliver the first 96 MW of capacity by December 2027 and the remaining 95 MW by June 2028.

What the Numbers Show

The divergence between the implied price of $2.4 per watt and the industry average of $1.8 per watt highlights a clear concentration of value in shovel-ready infrastructure. JPMorgan notes that this premium reflects tightening supply-demand dynamics, particularly for sites with existing grid access and near-term delivery timelines. Riot's Corsicana campus, which already has approved interconnection capacity and is partially energized, is under a non-binding letter of intent covering its full 756 MW, underscoring continued demand for large-scale AI deployments.

Market Implications

JPMorgan argues that recent actions by Texas regulators could further increase the value of power-ready campuses by making existing capacity more difficult to replicate. This regulatory environment may support elevated pricing for operators with ready infrastructure. The key question remains whether Anthropic's pricing proves to be an outlier or the beginning of a broader repricing across the AI infrastructure market. If Riot secures a binding lease for its 756 MW Corsicana campus at comparable economics, it would strengthen the argument that power, not GPUs, is becoming the scarcest asset in the AI buildout.