Hut 8 signs $9.8 billion AI data center lease, fully commercializes Texas campus

July 20 : Hut 8, a crypto-mining turned AI data center company, said on Monday it has signed a second 15-year lease worth $9.8 billion with an existing investment-grade customer, fully commercializing its 1-gigawatt Beacon Point campus in Texas.Shares of the company, which have nearly doubled this year, rose about 5 per cent in premarket trading.Like several former bitcoin miners, Hut 8 has pivoted toward AI infrastructure, seeking to leverage power assets and data center expertise developed during the cryptocurrency boom to serve AI customers.Demand for compute infrastructure has accelerated since the launch of generative AI services, prompting technology companies to commit hundreds of billions of dollars toward data centers packed with advanced chips from Nvidia and others. The rush has