Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Secures Google-Backed Deal to Build Up to 2.3 GW of AI Capacity

Hut 8 Corp. announced a sweeping AI infrastructure partnership on Wednesday with AI model developer Anthropic and compute provider Fluidstack, marking a pretty clear signal that the bitcoin miner is pivoting to a large-scale energy and data center developer.

Hut 8 ($HUT) stock soars

Hut 8 shares surged more than 20% in premarket trading following the announcement, extending a rally that has seen the stock rise roughly 80% year-to-date.

Investors appear to be rewarding the company’s pivot toward AI infrastructure at a time when access to power, cooling, and suitable real estate has become a bottleneck for leading model developers.

“Scaling frontier AI infrastructure is, at its core, a power challenge,” Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot said in a statement, emphasizing the company’s “power-first” development strategy.

He added that the partnership aligns power sourcing, data center design, and compute deployment into a single integrated platform capable of operating at gigawatt scale.

For Anthropic, the deal expands an existing relationship with Fluidstack and provides a new channel for bringing capacity online as demand for advanced models continues to grow.

“Hut 8’s ability to source and deliver infrastructure at scale provides the runway necessary to continue advancing the capabilities of our models,” said James Bradbury, Anthropic’s head of compute.

The agreement also reflects a broader industry shift. Former crypto miners such as Hut 8, CoreWeave, or Bitfarms are increasingly repurposing their energy-heavy infrastructure for AI workloads as demand for Nvidia-powered compute accelerates.

While execution risk remains — particularly around power delivery timelines and construction— Hut 8’s latest deal positions it among a small but growing group of firms bridging the worlds of energy, AI, and large-scale digital infrastructure.

Hut 8 recently reduced some of its bitcoin holdings by 389 BTC during the last month, standing out among a small group of miners and corporates trimming exposure.

While some firms added modest amounts and ETF flows turned positive, the data points to a split market in which Hut 8 and a few others acted as sellers amid pressure, contrasting with disciplined treasury buyers and programmatic accumulation elsewhere.

At the time of writing, Hut 8 shares are up 17%. Earlier in pre-market trading, shares were up over 25% at times. The price per share is currently $43.75.