Riot signs a $9.1B AI data-center lease

Riot Platforms signed a 20-year lease for 191 MW of critical IT capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus with an unnamed frontier AI lab, worth about $9.1 billion over the base term. Riot’s results release says the deal could reach $16.1 billion with two five-year extensions, with 96 MW due in December 2027 and the full deployment by June 2028; Morgan Stanley is providing a $573 million interim financing facility. Operators should file the lease as evidence that approved power is becoming contracted AI capacity, while remembering that the first megawatt is still more than a year away and the tenant remains undisclosed; it extends the archive’s analysis of sovereign AI-factory economics.