Marathon Digital (MARA) stock spikes as market revalues bitcoin miner's AI infrastructure pivot and 2 gigawatts of uncommitted power capacity.

Shares of Mara Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) rose on Thursday following the digital infrastructure developer's announcement of a major new project.

Mara has agreed to purchase powered land from sustainable fuels company HIF USA for an aggregate purchase price of up to $600 million. The site, located approximately 90 miles southwest of Houston, Texas, spans more than 1,200 acres and is projected to provide access to up to 2 gigawatts of grid capacity by April 2028.

In collaboration with Starwood Digital Ventures, Mara plans to build a digital infrastructure campus capable of supporting artificial intelligence and other high-performance computing workloads, alongside Bitcoin mining operations. According to Mara, prospective computing clients have already expressed interest in becoming tenants at the facility.

Construction is scheduled to begin this year, pending regulatory approval. The project is expected to more than double Mara's total power capacity to approximately 4.8 gigawatts, strengthening its position as a large-scale computing services provider.

"As demand for digital infrastructure continues to grow, we believe sites with access to reliable, scalable power will become increasingly valuable," said Mara CEO Fred Thiel. "This acquisition meaningfully expands our long-term development pipeline and strengthens our ability to support high-performance compute and maximize the value of that power over time."

The strategic shift toward AI data centers represents a significant pivot from Mara's prior focus on Bitcoin mining, with the potential for substantially greater profitability.