Hut 8 data centers expand with 245MW River Bend lease

In a major move for the AI infrastructure market, hut 8 data centers are at the core of a new long-term campus lease and strategic hyperscale partnerships.

Hut 8 signs 245MW lease at River Bend campus in Louisiana

Hut 8 has agreed a 15-year, 245MW lease with Fluidstack at the River Bend data center campus in Louisiana, in a triple net (NNN) deal valued at $7 billion, with the potential to rise to $17.7 billion if all options are exercised.

The initial data hall at River Bend, located in West Feliciana Parish just outside Baton Rouge, is scheduled for completion and commissioning in Q2 2027, with further capacity coming online over the rest of the year. Moreover, the structure of the lease underlines Hut 8’s shift from pure Bitcoin mining toward AI and high-performance computing.

Beyond the base term, the agreement includes three five-year renewal options and grants Fluidstack a Right of First Offer (ROFO) for up to an additional 1GW of IT capacity at future expansion phases of the River Bend campus. However, these options will depend on long-term demand for AI compute and local permitting.

Hut 8 acquired the River Bend site in March. The campus currently spans 627 acres, with potential expansion to 2,988 acres. Reports that the company was eyeing development in the area surfaced at the end of last year, and Hut 8 secured approval from local officials for a data center project in January.

Google-backed financing and Wall Street support

Google is backstopping the River Bend deal, providing a critical layer of demand assurance for Fluidstack’s long-term commitments. In parallel, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs are supplying loan financing for the project, signaling strong institutional confidence in the economics of large-scale AI infrastructure.

“River Bend reflects the strength of Hut 8’s power-first, innovation-driven development model, validated by the world-class counterparties we are executing alongside,” said Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8. He emphasized that the agreement is the result of disciplined, patient execution, focused on securing the right transaction rather than the first available one.

Genoot added that, together with the State of Louisiana, Entergy, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Vertiv, and Jacobs, Hut 8 expects to deliver next-generation AI and high-performance computing infrastructure at scale. Moreover, he stressed the company’s commitment to maintaining long-term rigor as it commercializes its broader development pipeline.

Noah Wintroub, global chairman of investment banking for J.P. Morgan, said River Bend shows how Hut 8’s combination of innovative thinking, an aligned team, and institutional discipline can translate into enduring value. “We are proud to bring the full power of J.P. Morgan to bear for this project, Hut 8, and our communities,” he noted.

Strategic Anthropic and Fluidstack partnership

The River Bend announcement coincides with a broader anthropic fluidstack partnership in which Hut 8 will help accelerate deployment of hyperscale AI infrastructure across the United States. As part of the deal, Hut 8 will develop and deliver at least 245MW and up to 2.295GW of AI data center infrastructure for Anthropic, using clusters operated by Fluidstack.

The first 245MW will be built at the River Bend campus, with options for an additional 1GW at that site. Moreover, beyond River Bend, Hut 8 and Anthropic may jointly develop up to another 1GW of optional capacity across the company’s wider development pipeline, further extending its AI-focused footprint.

Hut 8’s CEO said the partnership aligns power, data center design, and compute deployment into an integrated platform capable of delivering at gigawatt scale. This statement underscores how the hyperscale AI infrastructure push is reshaping the firm’s long-term strategy well beyond traditional Bitcoin mining.

Anthropic, a leading generative AI company, recently unveiled a $50bn partnership with Fluidstack to develop data centers in Texas and New York. It also announced a 1GW+ Google Cloud deal featuring up to one million TPUs, described as being worth “tens of billions of dollars.” However, specific site allocations are still emerging.

Massive build-out in Texas and New York

While unconfirmed, the Texas capacity for Anthropic may involve Fluidstack’s previously announced 168MW Abernathy facility, co-developed with TeraWulf, and/or its 244MW project with Cipher Mining. The New York site is likely a 360MW Fluidstack-TeraWulf development in Lake Mariner, which is already positioned as a major high-density compute hub.

Google is also backstopping all of those deals, agreeing either to assume capacity or pay a fee if Fluidstack fails. Moreover, Google has taken equity stakes in both TeraWulf and Cipher, deepening its exposure to next-generation digital infrastructure.

Google is a significant investor in Anthropic as well, holding a 14 percent stake. That said, Anthropic has maintained partnerships with multiple cloud and infrastructure providers as it scales its large language models.

James Bradbury, head of compute at Anthropic, said the new collaboration marks an expansion of the firm’s existing work with Fluidstack and creates a fresh opportunity to work with Hut 8 to bring additional capacity online by early 2027. He noted that Hut 8’s ability to source and deliver infrastructure at scale provides the runway needed to advance Anthropic’s models.

Fluidstack’s role in AI compute infrastructure

Gary Wu, co-founder and CEO of Fluidstack, said the company was built to solve compute challenges at scale across every level of complexity. “As Anthropic pushes the frontier of AI, we are proud to work alongside partners such as Hut 8 to design, deploy, and operate the foundational infrastructure that leading labs rely on to win,” he commented.

Fluidstack is emerging as a central player in AI cloud infrastructure, orchestrating capacity commitments spanning Louisiana, Texas, and New York. Moreover, with Google backstopping its agreements, the company is positioned as a bridge between hyperscale AI users like Anthropic and infrastructure specialists such as Hut 8, TeraWulf, and Cipher Mining.

Hut 8’s broader digital infrastructure pipeline

Nasdaq-listed Hut 8 now controls around a dozen sites either operating or under development, including six Bitcoin mining facilities and five colocation data centers. The company acquired five Canadian colo facilities from TeraGo in 2022, and in 2023 it merged with US Bitcoin, consolidating its North American footprint.

The firm has since spun out its mining operations to American Bitcoin, which leases capacity at Hut 8 sites, while Hut 8 itself also offers GPU-as-a-Service via its Highrise brand. Moreover, this shift underlines a pivot from pure mining toward diversified compute services aligned with AI and cloud demand.

In August, Hut 8 announced plans for four new US sites totaling 1.53GW of capacity under development. In total, the company says it has 10.6GW of capacity at various stages in its pipeline, including around 1GW in operation, 1.5GW in development, 1.25GW under exclusivity, and a further 6.8GW under evaluation.

Together, the River Bend lease, the Anthropic and Fluidstack partnerships, and Google-backed financing show how Hut 8 is transforming from a traditional crypto miner into a large-scale AI and high-performance computing infrastructure provider, with multi-gigawatt ambitions across North America.