Hut 8 Doubles Down in Texas: Second Beacon Point Lease Vaults Contracted Capacity to 704 MW
Hut 8 (Nasdaq: HUT | TSX: HUT) rallied as much as 6% on Monday after the bitcoin miner turned data center operator locked in a second long-term lease at its Beacon Point campus in Texas. Investors read the move as fresh proof that demand for AI-ready infrastructure keeps accelerating, and they bid the stock higher accordingly.
A $9.8 Billion Encore
Hut 8 signed a 15-year agreement worth roughly $9.8 billion for 352 megawatts of IT capacity. Notably, the same investment-grade customer that anchored the project’s first phase came back for the second, and in doing so it doubled its contracted footprint at the site to 704 megawatts. As a result, the deal fully commercializes the entire 1-gigawatt Beacon Point campus rather than just expanding it.
The economics scale accordingly. With both leases now in place, Beacon Point carries a base-term contract value of $19.6 billion over 15 years. Moreover, if the tenant exercises its renewal options, that figure could climb to $50.2 billion.
Why the Market Cheered
Two forces drove the enthusiasm. First, the customer’s repeat commitment signals confidence, because a hyperscale tenant rarely doubles its capacity at a single site unless it expects sustained compute demand. Second, the counterparty carries an investment-grade credit profile, which de-risks the revenue stream and makes Hut 8 look increasingly like a contracted infrastructure operator rather than a volatile crypto play.
That framing matters for valuation. Because Hut 8 now leases or backstops 100% of its contracted AI data center capacity to investment-grade counterparties, the company increasingly resembles a power-first data center REIT with a built-in development pipeline.
The Bigger Portfolio Picture
The Beacon Point news does not stand alone. Across its full AI data center portfolio, Hut 8 now holds 949 megawatts of contracted IT capacity, supported by roughly 1,330 megawatts of utility capacity. Together, those contracts represent an aggregate base-term value of $26.6 billion and are expected to generate more than $1.75 billion in average annual net operating income.
To fund the buildout, Hut 8 already tapped the debt markets aggressively. Earlier this year the company closed $4.25 billion of investment-grade senior secured notes for Beacon Point — reportedly the largest single-sponsor data center bond on record. Consequently, the capital stack now matches the ambition of the lease book.
From Mining Rigs to AI Racks
Like several former bitcoin miners, Hut 8 has pivoted hard toward AI infrastructure to capture surging demand for compute. Rather than simply repurposing old facilities, the company redesigned its first data hall around Nvidia’s reference architecture and squeezed a 57% capacity increase out of the same physical footprint. Management expects to deliver Phase 2 of the campus in the second quarter of 2028.
Power, however, remains the gating factor. Electricity availability has emerged as one of the industry’s biggest constraints, so Hut 8’s control of large, energized sites in Texas gives it a scarce and defensible asset in the race to house AI workloads.
Where the Stock Stands
Shares of Hut 8 closed most recently around $91.45, and the stock has nearly doubled year to date. Over the past 52 weeks it has traded between $18.68 and $140.80, while the company’s market capitalization has swelled to roughly $10.3 billion.
Wall Street has taken notice. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer reiterated a Buy rating and lifted his price target to $165 from $85, arguing that the market still underprices Hut 8’s locked-in AI lease revenue. If Palmer proves right, today’s Beacon Point announcement may look less like a peak and more like another step up.
