Hut 8’s $7B AI Power Play Sends Miner Shares Flying

Hut 8 is rapidly reshaping its future beyond Bitcoin mining, and markets are taking notice. Shares of the publicly traded miner surged more than 15% on Wednesday after the company unveiled a massive long-term agreement to supply power and infrastructure for high-performance computing at its River Bend campus in Louisiana.

The deal, signed with AI infrastructure firm Fluidstack and financially backstopped by Google, spans 15 years and carries an initial value of $7 billion. It centers on a 245-megawatt data center designed to support large-scale AI and HPC workloads. With renewal options included, the contract’s total value could climb to as much as $17.7 billion over time.

Following the announcement, Hut 8 stock jumped to around $42.55 shortly after the opening bell. The rally adds to a strong run for the company, with shares up nearly 13% over the past month and more than 150% over the last six months.

Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot framed the agreement as the outcome of a deliberate, long-term strategy rather than a rushed expansion. He highlighted collaboration with state and private partners, including Louisiana officials, Entergy, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Vertiv, and Jacobs, as key to delivering AI-grade infrastructure at scale while maintaining institutional discipline.

The River Bend project will also rely on JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for financing and loan underwriting, underscoring the growing involvement of major financial institutions in the AI compute buildout tied to former crypto-native firms.

The move places Hut 8 squarely within a broader industry shift. Bitcoin miners are increasingly repurposing their power access and data center expertise to serve AI customers. Similar Google-backed arrangements have already fueled sharp stock gains for peers, while some miners are scaling back—or even exiting—Bitcoin operations entirely to focus on AI compute services.

Construction at the River Bend site is expected to generate up to 265 local jobs, with the first data hall scheduled for completion in Q2 2027. Hut 8 currently operates five Bitcoin mining facilities across the U.S. and Canada, but its latest bet signals that AI infrastructure may soon rival—or surpass—mining as a core growth engine.