TL;DR
- Cipher Mining signs a $5.5 billion, 15-year contract with AWS for AI workloads.
- The company also announces a new 1 GW project for high-performance computing (HPC) in West Texas.
- The stock (CIFR) rose over 33% following the news, accumulating more than 400% year-to-date.
Cipher Mining (CIFR) shares experienced a surge of over 33% in early trading on Monday, trading at $24.81, after the company, originally a Bitcoin (BTC) miner, announced a deep diversification into artificial intelligence (AI).
The main catalyst was the revelation of a massive Cipher Mining agreement with AWS (Amazon Web Services) during its third-quarter update. This 15-year lease agreement, valued at $5.5 billion, commits Cipher to providing 300 MW of power capacity for AWS’s AI workloads starting in 2026, featuring both air- and liquid-cooled racks.
Along with the AWS pact, Cipher announced a new joint venture to develop a 1-gigawatt (GW) site in West Texas, named “Colchis.” Cipher will finance the majority of the development, giving it approximately 95% equity ownership.
The 620-acre site, located next to an existing substation, is fully suited for high-performance computing (HPC) data center development and is targeting energization by 2028, pending ERCOT’s final review.
AI Diversification Strategy Drives Shares
These announcements consolidate Cipher’s strategic pivot into the lucrative AI sector. CEO Tyler Page called the third quarter “truly transformative,” highlighting that this new Cipher Mining agreement with AWS follows a previous 10-year, 168 MW pact with Fluidstack, backed by a $1.4 billion guarantee from Google. “We are now following that transaction with another major step forward by signing our first direct lease with a Tier 1 hyperscaler,” Page stated.
Financially, although Cipher reported a net loss of $3 million in Q3, its adjusted earnings reached $41 million.The company highlighted that its AI hosting contracts now represent approximately $8.5 billion in total lease payments.
This trend is not unique to Cipher; other Bitcoin miners like IREN (which announced a $9.7 billion deal with Microsoft) are leveraging their power and infrastructure contracts to meet the voracious demand for AI data centers, which is driving valuations higher across the sector.
