Anthropic strikes US$9 billion cloud deal with Riot Platforms

[SAN FRANCISCO] Anthropic has struck a US$9.1 billion deal with Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin mining company that recently began selling artificial intelligence data centre capacity, people familiar with the matter said.

The move underscores the Claude maker’s efforts to secure enough computing to meet its customers’ demand.

Riot disclosed earlier on Monday (Aug 10) that it had secured a 20-year deal to supply 191 megawatts of computing – enough to power roughly 143,000 homes at any given moment – from its Rockdale, Texas, campus to a “leading frontier AI” company.

That company is Anthropic, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Riot declined to comment. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.

Riot’s shares jumped 25 per cent to US$24.40 in late trading on news of the deal with Anthropic. 

Anthropic has inked several deals with AI cloud computing suppliers in recent months to help shore up its computing needs after struggling to keep up with customer demand for AI tools.

The developer recently signed a US$10 billion deal with a months-old infrastructure startup, Volta Infra, and agreed to buy nearly US$45 billion worth of computing from Elon Musk’s xAI in May. 

Riot Platforms said earlier on Monday that the agreement with the AI developer runs through June 2048 and that it expects the contract to generate US$9.1 billion in revenue.

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The deal also includes an option to extend the contract twice, by five years each, translating into as much as US$16.1 billion in total sales. 

Riot, once a maker of diagnostic machinery for the biotech industry operating under the name of Bioptix before dramatically shifting to Bitcoin mining, is one of several crypto firms now moving into cloud computing to capitalise on the AI boom.

The developer has announced a separate deal with Advanced Micro Devices to build computing. 

Riot beat on sales in the second quarter in part because of its data centre business. BLOOMBERG