Hut 8 Mining signs $9.8 billion AI data center lease agreement in Texas, fully commercializing multi-gigawatt campus infrastructure.

Investment bank Benchmark has raised its price target on Bitcoin miner Hut 8 following the company's announcement of a second 15-year lease worth $9.8 billion for AI data center capacity. Equity research analyst Mark Palmer reiterated his "buy" rating and raised the price target to $195, up from $165—representing 80% upside from Hut 8's current share price of approximately $110.

The new deal, announced Monday, secures 352 megawatts of IT capacity at Hut 8's Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas. This doubles the site's contracted capacity to 704 MW against its total 1,000 MW of utility capacity, fully commercializing the campus. The stock responded with a more than 10% climb, closing near $101 after peaking above $106.

Palmer argued that the agreement validates Hut 8's "power-first" approach to building out AI infrastructure. He estimates the new lease alone could contribute roughly $655 million annually in net operating income once stabilized, with the campus's total contract value potentially reaching as high as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.

Hut 8 is among a growing cohort of publicly traded Bitcoin miners pivoting toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing as mining margins tighten due to falling Bitcoin prices and rising difficulty. The company secured a Google-backed deal in December with Anthropic and Fluidstack to develop as much as 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity across the United States.

Competitors including Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining have signed similar multi-year HPC contracts with Google and Microsoft. Bitfarms announced last year it would wind down mining operations entirely to focus on high-performance computing. Hut 8, by contrast, has maintained its mining business through its majority stake in American Bitcoin, a mining venture backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Hut 8 is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on August 4.