From hashrate to HPC: tracking the bitcoin miner pivot to AI hosting

From hashrate to leases: what has been signed

Pilot hosting deals from 2024 have become the dominant source of contracted revenue for the larger listed miners, and the tenant base has changed. Early contracts were with GPU clouds (CoreWeave, Core42, Fluidstack), often with Google backstopping Fluidstack’s rent. The 2026 vintage is dominated by direct leases with frontier AI labs and investment-grade technology companies on 15 to 20 year terms, several of them unnamed in company filings.

The table lists each significant contract we could verify from company releases, SEC filings or trade press. Values are base-term contract value as disclosed, excluding renewal options. Megawatts are critical IT load unless noted.

Two further transactions are excluded from the totals. TeraWulf’s Abernathy, Texas joint venture with Fluidstack (168 MW, about $9.5 billion over 25 years, announced October 2025) is being sold: TeraWulf agreed to sell its 50.1% interest for about $530 million. Galaxy’s Helios campus in Texas, leased to CoreWeave on 15-year terms with Galaxy guiding to more than $1.2 billion of average annual revenue, and Applied Digital ($31 billion and 1,200 MW contracted as of May 2026) are shown only as reference points because neither is a listed bitcoin miner in the same sense.

Company totals and pipelines

Where a company reports an aggregate, we use it. Where it does not, we sum the disclosed contracts. Pipeline figures are company statements and are not comparable across issuers, since some quote gross utility power and others critical IT.

Core Scientific and CoreWeave: the merger that did not close

CoreWeave’s proposed all-stock acquisition of Core Scientific, valued at about $9 billion with an exchange ratio of 0.1235 CoreWeave shares per Core Scientific share, failed when Core Scientific shareholders voted it down at a special meeting. The merger agreement was terminated on October 30, 2025, after opposition led by the largest shareholder, Two Seas Capital, and a negative recommendation from proxy adviser ISS. Both companies said the commercial relationship would continue. Core Scientific has since diversified: the AMD agreement signed in July 2026 roughly doubled its leased AI capacity to 1.1 GW, reducing CoreWeave’s share of its contracted value to about 42% on our arithmetic.

Economics: revenue per megawatt

Dividing base-term value by term and critical IT megawatts gives a simple average annual revenue per MW. For powered-shell and colocation leases the range is narrow: CoreWeave at Core Scientific about $1.44 million, Fluidstack at Lake Mariner about $1.86 million, Hut 8’s Beacon Point leases about $1.86 million, Core Scientific’s AMD deal about $1.76 million, CleanSpark about $1.89 million, and the two Anthropic-linked 20-year leases at TeraWulf and Riot about $2.37 million to $2.38 million.

IREN is a different model. As a GPU cloud provider it buys the hardware, so the Microsoft contract equates to about $9.7 million per MW per year and the Nvidia contract about $11.3 million. IREN says recent three-year contracts exceed $20 million of total revenue per MW with roughly two-year payback, but the $5.8 billion Dell equipment order behind the Microsoft deal (about $29 million per MW) shows how much capital sits behind that revenue.

Mining is the comparison point. Hashrate Index’s September 28, 2026 roundup put hashprice at $39.87 per PH/s per day, with bitcoin near $83,479, and estimated revenue of $138 per MWh for fleets under 14 J/TH, $100 per MWh for 14 to 19 J/TH and $75 per MWh for 19 to 25 J/TH. Annualised, that is about $0.66 million to $1.21 million of gross revenue per MW before power costs, versus lease revenue that is largely net of power under triple-net structures. Riot guides to average annual NOI of $365 million to $411 million on roughly $455 million of average rent, an 80% to 90% margin, with no exposure to the halving cycle or hashprice.

Capex and financing

• Build cost. TeraWulf guides to $8 million to $10 million per critical IT MW; Core Scientific’s AMD sites are estimated at $11 million to $12 million per MW. At those rates the roughly 4 GW under contract implies tens of billions of construction spend over 2026 to 2028.
• Project debt. Hut 8 has closed $7.5 billion of project notes: $3.25 billion for River Bend and $4.25 billion (Baa2) for Beacon Point phase 1. Cipher has $1.733 billion, $2.0 billion and $810 million of senior secured notes. Riot arranged a $573 million Morgan Stanley interim facility pending investment-grade financing.
• Convertibles. TeraWulf issued $1.0 billion and $1.025 billion of converts plus $3.2 billion of 7.75% secured notes in 2025. Cipher has a $1.3 billion zero-coupon convert. Bitfarms raised $458 million of converts in June 2026.
• Hyperscaler credit support. Google backstops Fluidstack rent at TeraWulf ($3.2 billion total commitment, about 14% pro forma equity via warrants), Cipher ($1.4 billion plus $333 million, 5.4% stake) and Hut 8’s River Bend lease. Nvidia received a warrant for up to 30 million IREN shares at $70.
• GPU finance. IREN has $6.4 billion of GPU financing: $3.6 billion investment-grade at 6.0% tied to Microsoft and $2.8 billion led by Blue Owl and PIMCO-advised investors, plus customer prepayments of 45% to 55% of GPU capex.

Risks

• Tenant concentration. Leases directly with or reported as Anthropic total $28.1 billion (22% of the $126.5 billion), rising to $35.1 billion (28%) including Hut 8’s Fluidstack lease tied to Anthropic’s build-out. Fluidstack-related leases total $17.5 billion. Several 2026 tenants are unnamed, which limits outside credit assessment.
• Execution. Most 2026 contracts deliver in the second half of 2027 or 2028 (TeraWulf Hawesville early 2028, Riot full 191 MW by June 2028, Beacon Point phase 2 in Q2 2028). Rent starts only on delivery, and Cipher bears the first $359.3 million of Barber Lake cost overruns.
• Power and interconnection. Pipeline figures rely on approvals not yet granted, including ERCOT large-load processes at Sweetwater and Matagorda County and FERC approvals at Morgantown and Long Ridge.
• Leverage and dilution. Warrant liabilities of $1.8 billion at TeraWulf and $1.98 billion at Core Scientific, and multi-billion secured debt stacks, mean equity holders sit behind lenders until projects are cash generative.

Methodology

Period: contracts announced from June 2024 through September 30, 2026, with data as of the latest company release cited (up to September 28, 2026 for market data). Sources are company press releases, SEC 8-K exhibits and quarterly results, supplemented by trade press (DatacenterDynamics, The Block, Data Center Frontier) where filings lacked detail. Contract value is base-term value as disclosed, excluding renewals. Company totals use the reported aggregate where available (Hut 8, Riot, Core Scientific as the sum of CoreWeave and AMD) and otherwise our python sum of disclosed contracts: TeraWulf ($19.0B + $6.7B + $1.1B), Cipher ($11.4B reported at March 31, 2026 plus the $5.2B extension) and IREN ($9.7B + $3.4B + $2.8B). Revenue per MW per year equals value divided by term and critical IT MW; it ignores escalators and ramp timing. Mining revenue per MW multiplies Hashrate Index’s per-MWh estimates by 8,760 hours. Megawatt totals mix critical IT and gross power (Cipher reports gross) and should be read as approximate. Limitations: values for Cipher’s March 2026 lease (implied at about $2.1B by subtraction) and IREN’s July batch MW are undisclosed; the Riot tenant is identified as Anthropic by media reports, not the company. Not investment advice.

Sources

• Hut 8 second quarter 2026 results (Aug 4, 2026)
• TeraWulf Q2 2026 results, SEC 8-K (Aug 5, 2026)
• Riot Platforms Q2 2026 release and lease disclosure, SEC 8-K (Aug 10, 2026)
• Core Scientific Q2 2026 results and AMD agreement, SEC 8-K (Jul 28, 2026)
• Core Scientific: termination of CoreWeave merger agreement (Oct 30, 2025)
• Cipher Digital business update, SEC 8-K (Aug 4, 2026)
• Cipher Digital Barber Lake lease extension release (Sep 25, 2026)
• IREN FY26 results (Aug 27, 2026)
• CleanSpark $6.6B Sandersville lease (Jul 14, 2026)
• Hashrate Index roundup, hashprice and revenue per MWh (Sep 28, 2026)