Hut 8 signs 7 billion AI maxi deal

On Wednesday, Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 announced a monumental $7 billion AI data centre lease deal with cloud infrastructure provider Fluidstack.

The announcement triggered an immediate rally on Wall Street, with Hut 8's shares jumping around 20 per cent in pre-market trading, breaking a period of high volatility.

Details of the mega contract in Louisiana

The deal involves the provision of 245 megawatts of computing capacity for artificial intelligence at Hut 8's River Bend campus, located in Louisiana. The base contract has a 15-year term and includes three five-year extension options that could push the total value of the deal up to around $17.7 billion.

At first glance, this $HUT deal looks like one of the most robust AI/HPC colocation contracts disclosed to date,' stated Matthew Sigel on X

In addition, Fluidstack will enjoy priority rights to lease an additional 1,000 megawatts as the campus expands. In addition to this partnership, Hut 8 is collaborating with AI developer Anthropic on a project that could scale up to 2.3 gigawatts of total capacity.

Google's strategic role and financial outlook

A key element of the deal is the involvement of Google (Alphabet), which will act as a financial guarantor for the initial lease period. This backing underlines the cloud giants' urgency to secure long-term power for energy-intensive AI workloads.

Hut 8 estimates that the project will generate approximately $6.9 billion in net operating income during the initial term of the lease.

The "Structural Reset" of Bitcoin Mining

Hut 8's move reflects a broader trend in the industry. Over the past year, Bitcoin mining has become structurally more complex due to increasing network difficulty, rising energy costs, and shrinking post-halving margins.

While purely cryptocurrency-focused miners struggle to offer a steady growth narrative, companies like Hut 8 are leveraging their privileged access to energy and industry infrastructure to diversify.

The transition to AI data centres thus emerges not only as a practical choice, but as a necessary strategy to ensure relevance and long-term financial stability in the global technology market.