Anthropic signed a $9.1 billion computing power order with mining company Riot (RIOT.US). The latter's stock price soared 25% after the market

The Zhitong Finance App learned that people familiar with the matter revealed that the AI company Anthropic PBC has reached an agreement worth about 9.1 billion US dollars with Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms Inc. (RIOT.US), which has recently begun providing AI data center computing power to the outside world. The deal highlights that Anthropic (which owns the AI model Claude) is trying to obtain sufficient computing power to meet the growing needs of its customers. Meanwhile, Riot announced financial results for the second quarter of 2026 after the market on Monday. Revenue exceeded expectations, but losses exceeded market expectations. The stock surged 25% after the market.

Riot revealed earlier on Monday (August 10) that it has signed a 20-year power supply agreement to provide 191 megawatts (MW) of electricity capacity at its Rockdale (Rockdale), Texas campus — enough to simultaneously power around 143,000 homes — to supply a “leading cutting-edge AI company.” According to people familiar with the matter, this company is Anthropic.

Riot declined to comment, and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment. Boosted by this news, Riot shares surged 25% to $24.24 in after-hours trading.

In recent months, Anthropic has successively reached several agreements with a number of AI cloud computing vendors to strengthen its computing power reserves. Previously, the company faced computing power bottlenecks due to a surge in customer demand. In May of this year, Anthropic signed an agreement worth $10 billion with Volta Infra Holdings Ltd., a computing power infrastructure startup that was only a few months old; in the same month, it also agreed to purchase nearly $45 billion worth of computing power services from Elon Musk's xAI.

Riot Platforms said earlier on Monday that the agreement is valid until June 2048 and is expected to generate US$9.1 billion in revenue during the contract period. The agreement also includes two renewal options, each of which can be extended for five years. If fully exercised, the total contract amount can reach up to US$16.1 billion.

Riot, formerly known as Bioptix, produced diagnostic equipment for the biotech industry, then completely transformed the Bitcoin mining business. Today, the company is one of many cross-border cloud computing cryptocurrency companies, trying to seize the opportunities brought by the AI boom. In addition, Riot has announced that it has reached another agreement with Chaowei Semiconductor (AMD.US) to cooperate in the construction of computing power infrastructure.

Riot Platforms announced financial results for the second quarter of 2026 after the market on August 10. Thanks to strong growth in the data center business, the company's revenue exceeded expectations, but was dragged down by factors such as non-cash depreciation of Bitcoin holdings, and the net loss increased dramatically.

In the second quarter, Riot achieved total revenue of US$174.2 million, an increase of 14% year over year, exceeding the agreed forecast of 17.16%. Among them, data center business revenue was USD 23.2 million; revenue from engineering business was USD 37.3 million, more than tripling from USD 10.6 million in the same period last year; and revenue from Bitcoin mining was USD 113.7 million. The company held more than $1.2 billion in current assets at the end of the quarter, including 11,380 bitcoins and US$548.9 million in cash.

In terms of earnings, GAAP's net loss reached US$237.2 million, or a loss of $0.68 per share, exceeding market expectations of US$0.39 per share. Losses are mainly due to changes in the fair value of Bitcoin holdings and non-cash items such as depreciation. The adjusted EBITDA loss was $70 million.