Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) saw its shares jump more than 25% in extended trading following the release of its second-quarter earnings and the announcement of a major artificial intelligence partnership. The stock reached a high of $24, its strongest level since July 23, and has now risen over 37% from its July low.

The rally came after the Bitcoin mining company disclosed a $9.1 billion agreement with Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude large language model.

Riot Platforms Secures $9.1 Billion Anthropic Agreement

Riot Platforms, one of the largest companies in the Bitcoin mining industry, has been actively pivoting toward the AI sector. The company has now signed a 20-year deal with Anthropic — valued at over $900 billion — scheduled to run through 2048. The contract includes two five-year extension options, which would bring the total value to more than $16.1 billion. The agreement is centered on Riot's Rockdale campus, a facility in Texas with substantial power infrastructure that the company has been adapting for high-performance computing workloads.

The strategic shift mirrors moves by other Bitcoin miners including MARA Holdings, Cipher Mining, and IREN. These companies have been diversifying into AI infrastructure amid prolonged weakness in Bitcoin's price, rising mining difficulty, increased costs following the April 2024 halving event — which reduced per-block mining rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC — and climbing energy expenses. Bitcoin miners have become attractive partners for AI workloads because their existing facilities already possess the large-scale power procurement agreements, electrical infrastructure, and cooling systems that AI data centers require, potentially reducing the time and capital needed to bring new capacity online compared to building from scratch.

Riot is now positioning its infrastructure to attract additional AI clients. Potential customers cited include Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Google, Perplexity, Reflection AI, and Oracle.

Bitcoin Miners Pursuing AI Partnerships

The Anthropic deal follows similar agreements across the sector. IREN secured a $9.3 billion contract with Microsoft and, in July, reached a deal with Perplexity AI along with companies such as Figure AI, Fluidsrack, and Together AI. IREN is now valued at over $13 billion.

CoreWeave, which originated as a Bitcoin mining operation, has signed deals totaling more than $99 billion and has grown into one of the largest companies in the AI data center industry.

A notable distinction for Riot Platforms is its focus on AMD chips, while most competitors in the space rely on Nvidia hardware. The choice of AMD could differentiate Riot's offering as demand for diverse compute options grows among AI developers, though it also means competing against the entrenched Nvidia ecosystem that dominates AI training and inference.

Second-Quarter Earnings Results

Riot Platforms reported a 14% year-over-year increase in Q2 revenue, reaching $174.2 million. The growth was driven in part by a surge in data center revenue, which rose to $23.2 million for the quarter.

The company continued its Bitcoin mining operations, producing 1,587 coins during the quarter, up from 1,426 in the same period a year earlier. Riot also sold 4,000 Bitcoin earlier this year.

Mining costs have been climbing industry-wide. Riot's average cost to mine one Bitcoin rose to $49,912, up from $48,992 in the comparable prior-year period. With Bitcoin trading at approximately $64,000, the company realized roughly $14,000 in profit per coin mined.

Share Price Movement

On the daily chart, RIOT shares had dropped sharply from their year-to-date high of $30.30 to a low of $19.40 before the earnings release. The stock then climbed to $23.50 following the results and the Anthropic announcement.

The weekly low coincided with an ascending trendline connecting lows since March 30 and the 200-day Exponential Moving Average. The next notable resistance level sits at $25.14, the stock's June 23 high.

Source: The Market Periodical