Trump’s Crypto Mining Firm Is Moving Into AI as Stock Surges 10%

Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 announced on Wednesday an AI data center lease valued at $7 billion with cloud infrastructure provider Fluidstack. The move reinforced a growing trend among crypto miners to pivot toward AI infrastructure.

Following the announcement, Hut 8 shares surged, snapping a prolonged period of volatile stock performance and reflecting renewed investor interest.

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Inside Hut 8’s Landmark AI Lease

The agreement covers 245 megawatts of AI computing capacity at Hut 8’s River Bend campus in Louisiana under a 15-year base lease.

It includes three optional five-year extensions, which could lift the total contract value to approximately $17.7 billion over its full term. The deal also gives infrastructure provider Fluidstack priority rights to lease up to an additional 1,000 megawatts as the campus expands.

Beyond the initial lease, the agreement forms part of a broader collaboration between Hut 8 and AI developer Anthropic that could eventually scale to as much as 2.3 gigawatts of capacity.

Alphabet-owned Google is providing a financial backstop for the initial lease term, highlighting major cloud providers’ urgency to secure long-term power for energy-intensive AI workloads.

Hut 8 expects the project to generate roughly $6.9 billion in net operating income over the initial lease period.

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Investors responded positively, with Hut 8 shares jumping about 20% in pre-market trading following the announcement. 

The move highlights the company’s efforts to stabilize its business, reflecting a broader trend among Bitcoin miners to pivot toward AI computing as a path to long-term relevance.

Bitcoin Mining Faces a Structural Reset

Throughout the year, Bitcoin mining has become a structurally more challenging business. Rising network difficulty, periodic surges in hash rate, higher energy costs, and the post-halving environment have steadily compressed margins.

As a result, many publicly listed miners that remained pure-play Bitcoin operators have struggled to deliver consistent earnings or a clear growth narrative. In response, an increasing number have moved to diversify their operations beyond mining alone.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence has driven a sharp increase in demand for computing power. Because Bitcoin miners already control large-scale power access and industrial infrastructure, shifting toward AI data centers has emerged as a practical and increasingly necessary strategy.

Hut 8 has recognized this broader backdrop, particularly as its shares have struggled to find stability in recent weeks amid heightened volatility in Bitcoin prices.