Riot Platforms’ shares jumped roughly 11% after the company announced a long-term data center lease with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that shifts part of its business from Bitcoin mining to AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.
Under the lease, Riot committed to deliver 25 megawatts (MW) of critical IT load at its Rockdale facility in a phased deployment scheduled from January 2026 through May 2026. The initial 10-year lease is expected to generate about $311 million in contract revenue, the company said.
If AMD exercises three optional five-year extensions, aggregate contract revenue could reach up to $1.000 billion and the site could eventually scale to 200 MW.
Riot also disclosed a fee-simple acquisition of 200 acres at Rockdale for $96 million, funded by selling about 1.080 Bitcoin from its corporate treasury. The company began retrofitting an existing building for AMD at an estimated cost of $89.8 million; Riot expects the retrofit to contribute approximately $25 million in net operating income per year once operational.
CEO Jason Les said the deal “validates Riot’s infrastructure and development capabilities,” framing the transaction as a strategic turning point.
Market reaction, analyst moves and strategic context
Market response was immediate: shares rose in double digits on the announcement. Analysts had begun repositioning on Riot late in 2025 as the company signalled a pivot to AI and HPC; banks including JPMorgan and Citigroup issued upgrades and raised price targets (to $19 and $24, respectively) in response to the strategic shift. Those upgrades, published in late 2025, treated the data-center push as a diversification away from purely mining-exposed cash flows.
AMD framed the lease as part of a broader push into AI infrastructure, noting Riot’s power availability and high-density capability as a match for AMD’s roadmap for high-performance GPUs and CPUs. Riot appointed Jonathan Gibbs as Chief Data Center Officer and added board members to accelerate the program, indicating an operational commitment beyond a one-off lease.
For Riot, the transaction monetizes underused energy capacity and converts a volatile mining revenue profile into contracted, longer-duration cash flows. For AMD, the lease provides a fast path to colocated capacity for AI workloads without the lead time of greenfield builds.
Investors are now focused on the phased delivery window from January 2026 to May 2026 as the first tangible test of the revenue thesis; successful handover and ramp will determine whether Riot can replicate the arrangement across remaining capacity and justify the recent analyst re-ratings.
