MARA shares rise on Texas infrastructure deal to expand AI and Bitcoin mining capacity

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MARA Texas AI & mining expansion

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MARA shares rose about 15% Thursday after announcing plans to acquire a 1,200-acre Texas site with up to 2 GW of power for AI and Bitcoin mining.
Upon completion by April 2028, the Matagorda County project will more than double MARA’s potential power capacity to roughly 4.8 GW.
Sector-wide, Bitcoin miners diversifying into AI have seen strong investor support, with Hut 8 shares up 20% on a $7 billion 15-year lease and TeraWulf up 12% after a $19 billion contract.

Texas site adds long-term power capacity

According to Cointelegraph, MARA said in a post on X that it plans to acquire a 1,200-acre site in Texas with access to as much as 2 gigawatts of electricity for AI computing and Bitcoin mining, while the project remains in early development and subject to regulatory approvals.

The site, in Matagorda County about 90 miles southwest of Houston, is expected to provide an initial 1 GW of grid capacity by October 2027 and as much as 2 GW by April 2028. The company says it plans to build the location as a digital infrastructure campus serving both high-performance computing and Bitcoin mining.

Upon full energization, the project is expected to more than double MARA's potential power capacity to about 4.8 GW. HIF USA is set to retain a minority ownership stake in the project if MARA signs a lease with a high-performance computing tenant, although the companies did not disclose financial terms.

Earlier this year, MARA continued expanding its infrastructure base. In April, it announced the acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power in a roughly $1.5 billion deal, adding a 505-megawatt gas-fired power plant and a co-located data center in Ohio, and it also acquired a 64% stake in French computing infrastructure operator Exaion.

AI strategy lifts sentiment across Bitcoin miners

MARA shares rose about 15% in early trading Thursday after the announcement, reflecting growing investor support for Bitcoin miners that diversify into AI and high-performance computing. MARA is the fourth-largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 36,303 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data.

Across the sector, miners are increasingly using power infrastructure originally built for Bitcoin production, including grid connections, substations and energized sites, to pursue AI data center demand. CoinShares estimates traditional mining infrastructure typically costs $700,000 to $1 million per megawatt, compared with $8 million to $15 million per megawatt for liquid-cooled AI infrastructure, highlighting the scale of investment needed for conversion.

Even with those costs, public miners continue signing large AI-related agreements. Core Scientific has expanded its hosting deal with CoreWeave to more than $10 billion, Hut 8 has signed a 15-year, $7 billion data center lease with Fluidstack, and TeraWulf has reported billions of dollars in contracted high-performance computing revenue.

Investors have rewarded that shift, with Hut 8 shares rising about 20% after its Fluidstack agreement and TeraWulf shares gaining about 12% last week after a 20-year AI data center lease with Anthropic that is expected to generate roughly $19 billion in contract revenue. MARA is also the sixth-largest holding in the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF at 4.76% of assets, while the fund's shares were up more than 5% in Thursday afternoon trading, according to Yahoo Finance data.

In our earlier coverage of MARA’s Texas digital infrastructure acquisition, we explained how its Volt Texas unit secured control of MAT 1177 LLC and a major campus from HIF USA to expand the company’s mining footprint in an energy-rich region. We also noted that the deal supported a more constructive near-term outlook for MARA shares, with price action turning bullish above key moving averages even as some indicators signaled elevated volatility and potential overbought conditions.

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