Anthropic Signs $9.1 Billion Compute Deal with Riot Platforms
Anthropic has reportedly signed a 20-year, $9.1 billion agreement with Riot Platforms to secure 191 megawatts of computing power from Riot's data center in Rockdale, Texas. The deal, which runs until June 2048, includes options to extend that could push the total value to $16.1 billion. This massive deal highlights the intense competition among AI labs to secure computing resources and illustrates a growing industry trend where cryptocurrency mining infrastructure is repurposed for AI workloads. It also signals Riot Platforms' successful pivot from Bitcoin mining into the lucrative AI cloud computing market. In addition to the Riot Platforms deal, Anthropic has recently secured a $10 billion infrastructure partnership with Volta Infra and a $45 billion compute purchase from Elon Musk's xAI. The company has also partnered with AMD to build out its computing infrastructure.
## BACKGROUND
As the demand for generative AI models surges, AI developers require unprecedented amounts of power and hardware. To meet this demand, several Bitcoin mining companies are repurposing their high-power data centers to host AI workloads, leveraging their existing access to massive electrical grids and cooling systems.