Riot Shares Jump After $9.1B AI Lease and Q2 Revenue Beat

Riot Platforms Inc. shares jumped after hours Monday after the company reported second-quarter revenue of $174.2 million and signed a 20-year data center lease expected to generate about $9.1 billion in initial contract revenue.The agreement covers 191 megawatts of critical IT capacity at Riot’s Rockdale campus for an unnamed frontier AI lab. The first 96 MW is expected online in December 2027, with the full deployment targeted for June 2028. Two five-year extension options could increase the contract value to about $16.1 billion.Riot also secured a $573 million interim financing facility from Morgan Stanley to fund initial development costs while a longer-term credit backstop is finalized.The new tenant follows Riot’s January agreement with AMD . Together, the two leases now cover 241 MW and represent roughly $9.8 billion in long-term contracted revenue. Riot completed AMD’s initial 25 MW deployment during the quarter, while construction on the second 25 MW is underway.CEO Jason Les called the latest agreement a “defining moment” in Riot’s evolution into a large-scale data center developer, placing more of the company’s power portfolio behind AI infrastructure alongside bitcoin mining.Second-quarter revenue rose 14% from $153.0 million a year earlier and topped analyst estimates of $152.06 million. Bitcoin mining remained Riot’s largest segment at $113.7 million, while data center revenue reached $23.2 million and engineering contributed $37.3 million.Riot mined 1,587 bitcoin during the quarter, up from 1,426 a year earlier, although average mining cost increased to $49,912 per bitcoin. The company ended June with $548.9 million in cash and 11,380 BTC.Shares initially rose 10.82% to $21.49 after the earnings release.Bitcoin mining still anchors Riot’s current revenue, but its contracted AI data center business is becoming a much larger part of the company’s long-term operating profile.Riot Platforms Inc. is currently trading at $19.40 U.S. per share.