Hut 8 Announces $7 Billion AI Data Center Lease in Louisiana

Hut 8 Corp., a digital infrastructure company, announced a 15-year lease agreement valued at $7 billion on Wednesday for 245 megawatts of artificial intelligence data center capacity at its River Bend campus in Louisiana, marking a significant expansion into AI hosting backed by Google.

The deal involves Fluidstack, an AI infrastructure provider, which will lease the capacity to support high-performance computing for Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI chatbot series. Google is providing a financial backstop that covers lease payments and related obligations throughout the base term, reducing risks for Hut 8. The agreement includes three five-year renewal options that could increase the total contract value to approximately $17.7 billion. It also grants Fluidstack a right of first offer for up to an additional 1,000 megawatts of capacity as the campus expands.

Construction at the River Bend site is already underway, with the first data hall scheduled for commissioning in the second quarter of 2027. Additional halls are expected to come online over the following year. The project will be financed through debt covering up to 85 percent of development costs, led by JPMorgan...