Bitcoin miners are turning to AI for the money. Riot's $9.1 billion lease is the clearest example yet

A growing number of Bitcoin miners have decided they would rather sell their power to artificial intelligence, and this month produced the most concrete example yet. Riot Platforms, one of the largest publicly listed Bitcoin miners, signed a two-decade deal to hand a big slice of its flagship Texas site to an AI lab. It is a lot of money, and it says something telling about where mining is headed.

What did Riot actually sign?

The details come straight from Riot's own filing:

• A 20-year data center lease for 191 MW of capacity at Riot's Rockdale, Texas campus, the same site it built out for Bitcoin mining.
• About $9.1 billion in expected initial contract revenue, rising to roughly $16.1 billion if two five-year extension options are exercised. The term runs through June 2048.
• The tenant is not named. Riot describes it only as "a leading frontier AI lab." CNBC and Bloomberg report it is Anthropic.
• Capacity is delivered in phases, 96 MW targeted for December 2027 and the remaining 95 MW for June 2028.
• It is not Riot's only AI deal. Counting a separate lease with AMD, Riot says it has now contracted 241 MW to two companies in the AI ecosystem.

Investors took notice: Riot's shares jumped more than 20 percent when the deal was announced, before paring back some of that gain over the following day. It is a striking reaction for a Bitcoin miner adding an AI-landlord business alongside its mining.

Why are Bitcoin miners pivoting to AI?

The short answer is money, and the fact that mining stopped making much of it. Publicly listed miners have been squeezed hard: CoinDesk reported that by late March, with production costs near $90,000 per bitcoin and the spot price closer to $67,000, margins had turned negative for many of them. Last year's halving, which cut the block reward miners earn, only sharpened the problem.

AI buyers, meanwhile, have shown they will pay well for exactly what these companies already have: large, permitted sites with grid connections and megawatts of power. Renting that capacity to an AI lab on a 20-year contract offers something mining rarely did, steady, contracted revenue that does not swing with the Bitcoin price. For a business that has spent years at the mercy of that price, a fixed multibillion-dollar lease is an easy trade to understand. (For the price backdrop miners are reacting to, see our look at whether the 2026 bull run is over, and at the broader shakeout running through the crypto industry.)

Is this bad for Bitcoin's security?

This is where it gets interesting, and where you should be wary of anyone who sounds too certain. Bitcoin's security rests on its hashrate, the total computing power miners point at the network. More hashrate makes the chain harder to attack. So when the firms that supply that power start redirecting it to AI, it is fair to ask what happens to the network's defences.

There is a real signal here. CoinDesk reported that Bitcoin's hashrate posted its first quarterly decline in six years earlier this year, down around 4 percent, and linked it to miners moving capital toward AI. That is a genuine break in a metric that had only ever gone up.

The counterargument carries real weight. Bitcoin's difficulty adjusts automatically: if hashrate falls, mining gets easier and more profitable for whoever stays, which tends to pull power back in. The network has weathered far sharper drops before, notably when China banned mining in 2021 and hashrate fell by more than half, and it kept producing blocks throughout. A gradual 4 percent dip is not the same as an attack. A reasonable reading is that this is worth watching, not panicking over: a structural shift in who mines and how much, rather than a crack in the system.

What it means

Strip away the crypto framing and the story is simple: AI is now willing to outbid Bitcoin for electricity and data-center space, and the people who own that infrastructure are responding rationally. Riot is not abandoning Bitcoin outright, it still mines, but the direction of travel is telling when a miner's biggest new contract has nothing to do with mining.

That is a quietly significant change. For years, cheap power flowed toward Bitcoin because nothing else paid as well at that scale. AI has changed the maths, and the same megawatts are now being fought over by a much richer bidder. Whether that ultimately weakens Bitcoin or simply reshapes who secures it is the open question, but for a growing number of operators the incentive has moved.

Frequently asked questions

What is Riot's deal with the AI company?

Riot Platforms signed a 20-year lease for 191 MW of capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus, expected to generate about $9.1 billion in initial revenue and up to roughly $16.1 billion if two five-year extensions are used. Capacity is due in phases in December 2027 and June 2028.

Is Riot's AI tenant Anthropic?

Riot's own filing does not name the tenant, calling it only "a leading frontier AI lab." CNBC and Bloomberg have reported that the counterparty is Anthropic. Riot has not publicly confirmed the name.

Why are Bitcoin miners moving to AI?

Mining margins have turned negative for many listed miners as production costs rose above the Bitcoin price, while AI companies will pay large, steady, long-term sums for the power and data-center sites that miners already control.

Does miners leaving hurt Bitcoin?

Bitcoin's hashrate posted its first quarterly drop in six years, which reduces the raw computing power securing the network. But Bitcoin's difficulty adjusts to keep it running, and the network has survived much larger hashrate drops before. It is a shift worth monitoring rather than an immediate threat.