Hut 8 signs 15-year, $9.8 billion lease to fully commercialize second phase of Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas

Hut 8 shares jumped 14% to $104.51 on July 20 after the company announced a 15-year lease for Phase 2 of its Vega Point data center campus in Texas, valued at $9.8 billion. According to CoinDesk reporting, the tenant is the same investment-grade customer that leased the facility's Phase 1, marking a major vote of confidence in the campus's expansion.

Under the agreement, Hut 8 will add 352 megawatts of AI computing capacity built on NVIDIA data center architecture. This expansion brings the tenant's total contracted capacity to 704 megawatts and fully commercializes Vega Point's 1-gigawatt power capacity. The campus's total base contracted value across both phases rises to $19.6 billion over the initial lease term.

The announcement sparked a rally across the high-performance computing sector. IREN climbed 15%, Cipher Mining gained 11%, and TeraWulf rose 6.4%. The CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) also advanced 9.3%.

The timing marks a significant reversal for AI infrastructure stocks, which had declined for weeks amid concerns about oversupply. Pressure mounted after Chinese companies released open-source AI models requiring less computing power than Western alternatives, raising questions about data center demand. Sentiment further weakened following reports that Meta Platforms was considering launching a cloud service to lease AI computing capacity, a move that fueled worries about market saturation.