Bitcoin Magazine

Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal

Investment bank Benchmark has raised its price target on Bitcoin miner Hut 8 following news that the company had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center.

Equity research analyst Mark Palmer reiterated his “buy” rating on the Toronto- and Nasdaq-listed miner in a note Wednesday, raising its price target to $195, up from $165 — an 80% upside from Hut 8’s current share price of nearly $110 a pop. 

Palmer argued that the deal validates Hut 8’s “power-first” approach to building out AI infrastructure. 

Hut 8 announced Monday that it had signed a second 15-year lease for 352 megawatts of IT capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas — doubling the site’s tenant to 704 MW of contracted capacity and fully commercializing the campus against its 1,000 MW of utility capacity. Hut 8 shares climbed over 10% on the news, closing near $101 after peaking above $106.

Palmer estimates the new Beacon Point lease alone could contribute roughly $655 million a year in net operating income once stabilized, pushing the campus’s total contract value as high as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.

Hut 8 is among a growing list of publicly traded Bitcoin miners pivoting toward AI and high-performance computing as mining margins get squeezed by a falling Bitcoin price and rising difficulty. 

The company struck a Google-backed deal in December with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build out as much as 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S.

Hut 8’s mining ventures

Rivals including Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining have signed similar multi-year HPC contracts with Google and Microsoft, while Bitfarms said last year it would wind down its mining operations entirely to focus on high-performance computing. 

Hut 8, by contrast, has kept its mining business running through its majority stake in American Bitcoin, the mining venture backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Hut 8 is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on August 4.

This post Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal

Bitcoin miner Hut 8’s shares rose Monday after the Toronto Stock Exchange- and Nasdaq-listed firm said it had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center. 

Hut 8 shares peaked as high as $106 a pop before dropping to around $101. They closed Monday up over 10%. 

The deal will see the Toronto-based firm’s Beacon Point campus in Texas data center cover 352 ​megawatts of IT capacity. The tenant using the data center’s will have its capacity doubled to 704 MW.

Hut 8 added that the campus has a base-term contract value of $19.6 billion over 15 years, rising to as much as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.

Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8, said: “The real test of our power-first approach is what our partners are willing to commit against it. Our tenant at Beacon Point chose to double its footprint at the site, the strongest validation an asset can receive.”

Hut 8 last year signed a deal with American Data Centers Inc., a company backed by President Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., to contribute its Bitcoin mining equipment and help debut their American Bitcoin mining firm. 

AI pivot

Hut 8 is one of a number of top publicly listed miners that have started directing resources to providing the infrastructure for high-powered computing.

The company in December secured a Google-backed partnership with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build up to 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S.

JUST IN: #Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 just announced it partnered with Google for financial backing on a 15-year lease.

Bullish pic.twitter.com/NQN9JmW0ob

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 17, 2025

A number of Bitcoin miners have already gone all-in on the industry as minting the biggest digital coin by market cap becomes harder and demand for AI compute surges. 

As the price Bitcoin has dipped, it has become harder for Bitcoin miners to make ends meet. 

Nasdaq-listed Bitfarms last year announced that it would wind down mining operations to focus on high-performance computing.

Instead of dropping mining operations completely, a number of Bitcoin miners have instead marketed themselves as “compute” or “digital infrastructure” companies while switching between minting digital coins and providing compute for AI — depending on which is more profitable.

Top miners Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining all last year signed multi-year HPC contracts with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft.

Both the crypto mining and HPC industries require huge amounts of energy and data centers — but the move isn’t always easy: AI data centres require more expertise than Bitcoin mining.

This post Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Hut 8 signed a second $9.8B Texas AI lease, while IREN added $2.8B in contracts and lifted its 2026 AI Cloud target above $4B.