Anthropic signed a $9.1 billion multi-year compute supply agreement with Riot Platforms, the former Bitcoin mining operator that now runs datacenter infrastructure in Texas. The deal runs through 2030 and gives Claude dedicated compute capacity across Riot's 750-megawatt facility footprint. Riot's stock moved 18% in after-hours trading on the announcement.
Riot spent the last eighteen months converting Bitcoin mining halls into AI-ready datacenters after mining economics deteriorated following the 2022 halving. The company now operates four facilities in Rockdale, Texas with direct access to ERCOT grid infrastructure and existing cooling systems designed for high-density compute. Anthropic gets first-call rights on 400 megawatts of that capacity starting Q3 2025, with incremental tranches coming online through 2027 as Riot completes its build-out. The contract includes volume commitments tied to Claude's inference workload, not training runs.
The deal matters because it removes datacenter availability as a scaling constraint for Anthropic while the company competes with OpenAI and Google on inference speed. Anthropic's simultaneous $6 billion acquisition of Decart—a chip optimization startup—suggests the company is building a vertically integrated inference stack: captive hardware, proprietary acceleration, and locked-in power supply. Riot benefits by converting stranded mining assets into contracted revenue at margins higher than Bitcoin mining ever delivered. The $1.5 billion per year average run rate gives Riot's balance sheet enough visibility to finance additional datacenter conversions without equity dilution.
This is the second major compute supply agreement announced this quarter. CoreWeave signed a $10 billion deal with Microsoft in January, but that contract covered training and inference across multiple models. Anthropic's agreement is inference-specific and tied to a single model family, which implies higher utilization rates and simpler capacity planning for Riot. The Texas location also matters. ERCOT's deregulated grid allows Riot to negotiate interruptible power rates that make the economics work at scale, something harder to replicate in capacity-constrained markets like Northern Virginia.
Operators should watch Riot's Q2 2025 earnings call for details on the revenue recognition schedule and capital expenditure required to meet the first tranche deadline. Anthropic will likely announce inference pricing changes within sixty days if the Decart optimization technology delivers the promised 3-4x efficiency gains. The company needs to show margin improvement on inference to justify the combined $15 billion in capital commitments. Watch also for similar deals from other foundation model companies. If Anthropic can lock in capacity at this scale, OpenAI and Google will need equivalent supply agreements to maintain competitive parity on inference speed.
Riot's datacenter utilization will hit 54% by year-end if the first Anthropic tranche deploys on schedule. That is the highest capacity factor any converted mining facility has achieved in the AI era.