Hut 8 Signs $7B AI Data Center Deal with Google Backstop

The scale of the agreement is monumental. Hut 8 has signed a 15-year lease valued at approximately $7 billion to deliver 245 megawatts of AI data center capacity from its River Bend campus in Louisiana. This represents a massive, long-term commitment that fundamentally repositions the company’s revenue model. For context, the deal dwarfs typical short-term contracts in the crypto mining industry, providing Hut 8 with a predictable and substantial income stream for well over a decade. The capacity—245 megawatts—is a significant block of power-first compute, precisely the resource hyperscalers like Google are aggressively seeking to fuel the exponential growth of artificial intelligence workloads.

CEO Asher Genoot explicitly framed the River Bend agreement as validation of Hut 8’s “power-first, innovation-driven development model.” This model, honed through the energy-intensive process of Bitcoin (BTC) mining, is now being directly applied to the similarly power-hungry world of AI. The deal is a result of what Genoot called “disciplined and patient execution,” suggesting a deliberate, long-term strategy to monetize the company’s infrastructure assets beyond the cyclical crypto market.

Perhaps the most critical element of the deal, and a primary driver of its positive market sentiment, is the involvement of tech giant Google (GOOGL). While infrastructure provider Fluidstack is the named lessee for the 245MW capacity, Google has committed to providing a financial backstop. This guarantee covers lease payments and related obligations over the entire 15-year base term, meaning Google will step in to cover costs if Fluidstack is unable to pay.

This backstop arrangement dramatically de-risks the agreement for Hut 8 (HUT). It transforms a major contract with a single infrastructure provider into a deal with the implicit creditworthiness of a trillion-dollar technology leader. For investors, this guarantee provides unprecedented security for the $7 billion revenue stream, mitigating counterparty risk and ensuring the financial stability of the long-term pact. It also signals Google’s serious commitment to securing reliable, large-scale compute capacity for its AI ambitions, and its confidence in Hut 8’s ability to deliver it.

This agreement marks one of the most significant strategic pivots by a publicly traded Bitcoin miner to date. Hut 8 is leveraging the core competencies it built in the United States—securing large-scale power contracts, managing data center operations, and navigating complex energy markets—and redirecting them toward the insatiable demand from AI hyperscalers. The convergence is natural: both Bitcoin mining and AI training require vast amounts of electricity and robust cooling infrastructure.

The deal underscores a growing trend where crypto-native firms are repurposing their infrastructure to serve the broader tech ecosystem. For Hut 8, the move toward “long-duration AI infrastructure revenue” offers a potential hedge against Bitcoin’s price volatility and the impending Bitcoin halving events that reduce mining rewards. By anchoring its business with a 15-year, $7 billion contract backed by Google, Hut 8 is not just diversifying; it is fundamentally restructuring its future around the structural growth narrative of artificial intelligence, while its Bitcoin operations continue.