Hut 8 shares surged 33% after signing a $9.8B AI data center lease tied to its Beacon Point campus in Texas.
Hut 8 (HUT) shares climbed more than 33% on May 6 after the company announced a 15-year lease agreement valued at $9.8 billion tied to a large-scale AI data center project at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas. The lease covers 352 megawatts (MW) of IT capacity and was signed with a tenant Hut 8 described as investment-grade.
The agreement is structured to support AI training and inference workloads. Renewal options built into the contract could raise the total value to approximately $25.1 billion if all terms are exercised. Initial delivery of the first data hall is expected by Q3 2027, with broader campus energization targeted for Q1 2027.
Beacon Point was originally developed as a Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility before being repositioned for AI infrastructure. The campus has secured 1,000 MW of utility capacity and forms part of Hut 8's broader 7,500 MW pipeline. The project is designed to NVIDIA's DSX reference architecture and will be built with American Electric Power, Vertiv, and Jacobs.
The Beacon Point lease brings Hut 8's total contracted AI data center capacity to 597 MW. Aggregate base-term contract value across its portfolio has reached approximately $16.8 billion. Chief Executive Asher Genoot said the company's approach centers on securing power assets first and redirecting them toward higher-value uses as demand evolves.
Bitcoin Mining Economics Drive AI Pivot
The announcement came alongside Hut 8's Q1 2026 earnings, which showed a net loss of more than $253 million. The company attributed the loss primarily to a decline in the market value of its BTC holdings, which fell from above $126,000 per coin in October 2025 to a low of $60,000 in February 2026.
Q1 revenue totaled $71 million, down approximately 22% from $88.4 million in the prior period, missing the analyst consensus of $78.5 million, per FactSet. Of that total, $66 million came from ASIC compute, AI cloud, and traditional cloud services.
Publicly listed BTC miners are currently producing coins at a loss of approximately $19,000 per coin. Crypto analyst Ran Neuner said AI infrastructure pays between $200 and $500 per MW, compared to $57 to $129 per MW for Bitcoin mining. He added that both industries compete for the same electricity and that AI operators are currently willing to pay more for it.
More than $70 billion in contracts have been signed across the sector. Some miners are projected to derive up to 70% of their revenue from AI by the end of 2026.
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