Riot Leases Its Entire 910 MW Texas Campus to Anthropic for About $28 Billion

Anthropic has leased all 910 megawatts of Riot Platforms’ Corsicana campus in Texas for 15 years, in what CEO Jason Les called the largest lease in Riot’s history.

Rent is owed on every megawatt whether or not Anthropic uses it, so the cost of any idle capacity falls on the tenant. For Anthropic, the lease turns a capacity plan into a fixed bill that starts as each block is delivered in 2027 and 2028.

What does Anthropic get?

Riot, which signed the lease Oct. 28, supplies the land and the electrical infrastructure to each building site. Anthropic buys, installs and runs its own computing equipment on the campus. It also pays the property taxes, insurance, site expenses and electricity at cost, the terms of what the filing calls a triple-net lease.

The campus sits on 332 acres in Navarro County.

How does the rent add up?

Base rent is $130 per kilowatt of capacity a month for each block delivered, rising 3% a year. By The Denominator’s arithmetic, 910 megawatts at that rate is about $1.42 billion in the first year after every block is delivered. The yearly increases push the average to about $1.8 billion, and the 15-year total to the roughly $28 billion in the headline.

If Anthropic uses both of its five-year extension options, Riot puts the total at about $54 billion. Riot did not say what Anthropic’s computing equipment will cost, so the tenant’s full outlay on the site is not public.

Who pays for the build?

Riot puts the cost at about $5.5 billion, or $6 million a megawatt. Riot pays $2 million a megawatt for site work and electrical infrastructure. For the other $4 million, Riot will reimburse Anthropic for part of the cost of the modular computing equipment it installs, after each phase is delivered and paying rent.

Riot expects to raise project debt that only the Corsicana project must repay, sized to the rent. If lenders will not offer market terms, Riot gives Anthropic rent credits instead. Those credits repay the amount with 12% annual interest.

When does the capacity arrive?

The first block is due June 28, 2027, and the first 400 megawatts by September 2027. Another 200 follow by January 2028 and the last 310 by July 2028, with rent on each phase starting within 60 days of delivery.

Anthropic is also the tenant on Riot’s 191-megawatt Rockdale lease, signed in August, which puts 1,101 megawatts of Riot capacity behind one customer by July 2028 (The Denominator’s arithmetic).

Whether Riot delivers that first block on June 28, 2027, shows if the schedule holds, and when the rent starts.