Riot Signs 910 MW Corsicana Lease Worth About $28bn

Riot Platforms said on 4 November 2026 that it has signed a 15-year triple-net powered land lease for the entirety of its Corsicana, Texas campus with what it calls a “leading Frontier AI Lab,” covering 910 megawatts of critical IT capacity on a contiguous 332-acre parcel, according to Riot’s third-quarter release and the company’s SEC Form 8-K Exhibit 99.2 presentation. Riot did not name the tenant.

Riot puts total contract value at approximately $28 billion and average annual rent at approximately $1.8 billion over the initial term, including contractual escalators. If both five-year extension options are exercised, Riot says the figure rises to approximately $54 billion. Chief executive Jason Les called it “the largest lease in Riot’s history.”

What Riot says the lease actually covers

Under the triple-net structure Riot describes, it delivers the land, power infrastructure and powered pads, and keeps owning and maintaining the high- and medium-voltage kit that serves them. The tenant procures, installs, owns and operates the modular compute on those pads. Capital intensity is pitched at about $6 million per IT megawatt, or $5.5 billion overall — roughly half a typical Tier 3 build, Riot says — with Riot funding $2 million per megawatt for site work and electrical infrastructure and the remaining $4 million per megawatt reimbursed to the tenant in phases after each phase is delivered and paying rent. Reimbursements are expected to be funded with non-recourse project debt sized to contracted rent; if that financing is unavailable on comparable terms, Riot says the tenant funds the reimbursements and recovers them as a rent credit.

Delivery is staged: 400 MW in September 2027, 200 MW in January 2028 and 310 MW in July 2028, with rent on each phase starting no later than 60 days after delivery of its powered pads. Riot now says it has leased 1,151 MW of critical IT capacity, representing about $38 billion of long-term contracted revenue. Separate Q3 colour in the same release: quarterly revenue of $181.4 million including $18.4 million of data-centre revenue, and 20,264 bitcoin sold year-to-date for about $1.5 billion primarily to fund data-centre development.

Texas AI campuses keep filling megawatts

The Corsicana deal sits in the same Texas AI-campus scramble TSN has already mapped. Galaxy’s Q3 data-centre earnings jump showed how former crypto balance sheets are being re-rated as power landlords. Soluna’s Texas venture with Applied Digital is another powered-land bet in the same state. TCEQ’s STEERS permit-portal screening remains the regulatory friction for new applications — context for why leased, already-zoned campuses with power pads command multi-decade rents.

For UK investors watching US AI power as an infrastructure trade, the actionable points are contractual, not speculative: a named megawatt schedule, a disclosed capital split, and an explicit refusal by Riot to identify the tenant. That anonymity is the story’s hard boundary. Press guesses about which frontier lab signed are not in Riot’s filings and are not used here.

Unnamed tenant, named cash flows

Watch next for any tenant disclosure in later Riot filings, the first pad delivery against the September 2027 400 MW milestone, and whether the non-recourse debt for the $4 million-per-megawatt reimbursements closes on the terms Riot expects. Until a name appears in an official Riot or SEC document, treat the counterparty only as Riot’s “leading Frontier AI Lab.” The Riot Corsicana lease is a 910 MW, roughly $28 billion powered-land contract with staged Texas deliveries — scale confirmed, tenant still blank.

Powered pads shift risk to the tenant’s rack

Riot’s triple-net framing is as important as the headline rent. By stopping at powered pads and keeping the high-voltage plant, Riot is selling land-plus-electrons rather than a turnkey Tier 3 hall. That lowers Riot’s construction scope and pushes modular compute procurement onto the unnamed lab. It also explains the capital split: $2 million per megawatt of Riot cash for site and electrical work, versus $4 million per megawatt reimbursed after phases pay rent. UK infrastructure funds reading the 8-K should price the credit risk of those reimbursements and the extension options separately from the headline $28 billion.

Sources

• Riot Platforms Reports Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Strategic Highlights (4 November 2026)
• Riot Form 8-K Exhibit 99.2 presentation (SEC)

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