---
title: "Hut 8's $27 billion of AI leases cover 949 megawatts; the other 6,910 need about $73 billion to build"
description: "The Bitcoin miner's November 4 call put 949 megawatts under AI leases worth about $27 billion, against quarterly revenue of $71.1 million. Most of the 7,859-megawatt pipeline behind them has neither a tenant nor construction underway."
publisher: "The Inference"
section: "Data Center"
published: 2026-11-15T18:16:33.790Z
modified: 2026-11-15T18:16:33.790Z
canonical: https://theinference.org/article/hut-8-s-27-billion-of-ai-leases-cover-949-megawatts-the-other-6-910-need-about-73-billion-to-build
language: en
keywords: "Hut 8, Data Centers, AI Infrastructure, Bitcoin Mining, Project Finance"
---

# Hut 8's $27 billion of AI leases cover 949 megawatts; the other 6,910 need about $73 billion to build

> The Bitcoin miner's November 4 call put 949 megawatts under AI leases worth about $27 billion, against quarterly revenue of $71.1 million. Most of the 7,859-megawatt pipeline behind them has neither a tenant nor construction underway.

The miner-to-AI conversion got its first public price tag this week, and [Hut 8](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/hut-8-mining)'s shares spent two days paying for it: down 7.21% on November 13 and 3.82% on November 14 [1][2]. On November 14, Coinpaper tallied [Core Scientific's April 2026 financing disclosure](https://coinpaper.com/38845/can-you-actually-turn-a-bitcoin-mine-into-an-ai-data-center-here-s-what-it-costs) and put the cost of turning a Bitcoin mine into an AI data center at about $9.3 million a megawatt [3]. Laid against Hut 8's pipeline, that arithmetic splits the company in two [3].

The [November 4 third-quarter call](https://cryptonews.net/news/mining/33738653/) had described the signed half: 949 megawatts of IT capacity contracted under AI leases running 15 to 17 years, worth about $27 billion in base-term revenue [4]. The quarter's receipts ran the other way. Revenue was $71.1 million, against $83.5 million a year earlier, and most of the quarter's $189.5 million of net income was an unrealized mark on bitcoin [5].

The distance between those numbers is a construction project. Construction gets paid now.

*Chart: **Revenue has sat near $70 million a quarter while the AI rent waits for 2027** Line chart of Hut 8 quarterly revenue from Q4 2024 through Q3 2026, rising from about $32 million to a peak near $88 million and flat near $70 million in the last two quarters*

*Quarterly revenue in US dollars, calendar quarters. The 949 contracted megawatts hand over from the second quarter of 2027. Source: Hut 8 SEC filings. [9]*

## The leases are signed; the buildings are not

Nothing hands over before the second quarter of 2027, when [the first data hall at River Bend, Louisiana is due](https://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2026/11/04/10474990.htm); Beacon Point in Texas follows in the third quarter of 2027 and into 2028 [5]. Chief executive [Asher Genoot](https://theinference.org/markets/people/asher-genoot) says each campus will be "funded entirely at the project level, without requiring equity issuance or recourse debt at the parent" [5].

So far that funding means $7.5 billion of bonds tied to River Bend and Beacon Point's first phase, non-recourse in that lenders can claim only the individual project, not the parent company [4]. Hut 8 also closed a $1.07 billion revolving credit facility, undrawn, and holds about $6.6 billion of cash [5]. The bill has started regardless: [quarterly interest expense of $105 million](https://theinference.org/article/hut-8-shareholders-carry-river-bend-s-interest-and-tax-bill-until-the-first-hall-opens-in-2027) now outruns revenue [5].

*Chart: **Only 1,330 of Hut 8's 7,859 pipeline megawatts are under construction** Hut 8's 7,859 MW development pipeline split by stage as of September 30, 2026*

*Utility capacity in megawatts by development stage, September 30, 2026; the annotation marks IT capacity under lease, a different basis. Sources: Hut 8 Q3 2026 results release and Q3 call. [4][5]*

## The rest of the pipeline is a $73 billion bill

[Core Scientific](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/core-scientific), the first miner to make this pivot, disclosed $5.5 billion of construction spend for 590 contracted megawatts in its April financing documents, tallied by Coinpaper on November 14 [3]. That is about $9.3 million a megawatt, because an AI hall needs liquid cooling, dense electrical distribution and fiber that a shed of Bitcoin mining chips never had [3].

At that rate, Hut 8's 7,859-megawatt pipeline implies roughly $73 billion of building, close to ten times the bonds raised so far [3][4]. Financing for Beacon Point's second phase is still being "evaluated" [5].

## The market started charging for the gap this week

Keel, the former [Bitfarms](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/bitfarms) and a fellow convert, fell about 20% when its chief executive said no AI leases would be signed this year [6]. Hut 8 itself jumped 16% on the day it reported [7].

The bitcoin that bridges the build slid toward $60,000 as [exchange-traded-fund outflows hit a seventh straight day](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/quote/6JL.DU/chart/) [8]. Hut 8 has already funded about $250 million of buybacks by selling roughly 3,100 coins [4].

None of this doubts the demand. [OpenAI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/openai) chief executive [Sam Altman](https://theinference.org/markets/people/sam-altman)'s line is that the bottleneck for AI "isn't code, it's electrons," and River Bend sits on a [$7 billion contract with Google and Anthropic](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/meet-captain-keel-37-old-100000989.html) [6]. Power is the scarce asset; on this arithmetic, the constraint has moved from holding it to financing the buildings on it.

The marker is the River Bend handover in the second quarter of 2027 [5]. Until a tenant switches on, the $27 billion headline covers only the 949 leased megawatts, and the other 6,910 earn nothing until the pipeline's roughly $73 billion bill is raised and spent [5]. Anyone buying the headline is paying for megawatts with no tenant.

## Takeaway

Hut 8 has signed AI leases worth about $27 billion on 949 megawatts, but building the rest of its 7,859-megawatt pipeline at Core Scientific's roughly $9.3 million a megawatt implies about $73 billion, against $7.5 billion of project bonds raised so far.

## Sources

1. [Investing.com Canada, "Form 13D/A Hut 8 Corp. For: 13 November" (HUT −7.21%), 13 November 2026](https://ca.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/form-13da-hut-8-corp-for-13-november-93CH-4958096)
2. [Kalkine Media, "Hut 8 (NASDAQ:HUT) Draws Strong Ratings As AI Infrastructure Expands" (HUT −3.82%), 14 November 2026](https://kalkinemedia.com/us/stocks/financial/hut-8-nasdaqhut-draws-strong-ratings-as-ai-infrastructure-expands)
3. [Coinpaper, "Can You Actually Turn a Bitcoin Mine Into an AI Data Center? Here's What It Costs", 14 November 2026](https://coinpaper.com/38845/can-you-actually-turn-a-bitcoin-mine-into-an-ai-data-center-here-s-what-it-costs)
4. [Crypto Briefing via Cryptonews.net, "Hut 8 details strategy shift to AI data center leases in Q3 call", 11 November 2026](https://cryptonews.net/news/mining/33738653/)
5. [Hut 8 Corp. press release via TMCnet, "Hut 8 Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results", 4 November 2026](https://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2026/11/04/10474990.htm)
6. [Fortune via Yahoo Finance, "Meet 'Captain Keel,' the 37-year-old steering a Bitcoin miner into the AI data center gold rush", 14 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/meet-captain-keel-37-old-100000989.html)
7. [Blockonomi, "Hut 8 Corp. (HUT) Stock: Surges 15% as 7,859 MW Pipeline and $1.3B Annual NOI Target Drive AI Expansion", 4 November 2026](https://blockonomi.com/hut-8-corp-hut-stock-surges-15-as-7859-mw-pipeline-and-1-3b-annual-noi-target-drive-ai-expansion/)
8. [Yahoo Finance Australia market headlines page ("Bitcoin slides toward $60,000 as ETF outflows and liquidations intensify"), 15 November 2026](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/quote/6JL.DU/chart/)
9. [Hut 8, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 15 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001964789)


---

Hut 8's $27 billion of AI leases cover 949 megawatts; the other 6,910 need about $73 billion to build — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/hut-8-s-27-billion-of-ai-leases-cover-949-megawatts-the-other-6-910-need-about-73-billion-to-build