Riot's $28 billion Anthropic lease needs $5.46 billion in estimated funding

Riot is turning Corsicana power infrastructure into a 910 MW AI lease, with Anthropic owning the computing modules. Borrowing terms, delivery dates and a 12% tenant financing alternative will determine how much contract rent becomes cash.

Riot Platforms has committed 910 megawatts of critical IT capacity at Corsicana, Texas, to a lease with a 15 year initial term and expected initial contract revenue of $28 billion. The question is whether Riot can finance $5.46 billion of estimated costs and convert deliveries into cash.

Riot owns the power, Anthropic owns the modules

Riot's Q3 2026 presentation calls the counterparty Frontier AI Lab. Its November 4 Form 10-Q identifies the tenant as Anthropic PBC and says the Corsicana lease was executed October 28 and became effective November 4.

Riot supplies powered pads and maintains high and medium voltage infrastructure. Anthropic procures, installs and owns the computing modules, pays actual utility charges without markup, and owes rent on delivered capacity regardless of utilization. Riot transfers hardware and utilization risk while retaining power delivery and customer credit exposure.

The lease generally restricts Riot from voluntarily curtailing Anthropic's load or entering demand response programs without consent, except for mandatory grid curtailment, narrowing the flexibility associated with bitcoin mining.

Why starting rent is $1.42 billion and average rent is $1.8 billion

The 10-Q specifies base rent of $130 per kilowatt per month, rising 3% annually. At the starting rate, 400 MW would bill $52 million monthly, or $624 million annualized; all 910 MW would bill $118.3 million monthly, or $1.4196 billion annualized. These are annualized billing rates after the relevant capacity starts rent, not forecasts for calendar 2027.

Riot's projected $1.8 billion average annual rent includes the effect of higher payments across the lease term. Its 33% yield on cost uses average property net operating income (NOI), while its 99% NOI margin excludes debt service, sustaining capital, taxes and corporate overhead. Under US lease accounting rule ASC 842, lease income can also diverge from cash billed when fixed rent increases are recognized on a straight line basis.

The contract schedules the full 400 MW first phase for September 11, 2027, another 200 MW by January 28, 2028, and the remaining 310 MW by July 30, 2028. Rent commences block by block after delivery, with up to 60 additional days allowed in specified circumstances when modules are not installed. Delays can defer collections and eventually trigger credits or phase termination rights.

Two optional extensions of five years each would increase potential nominal contract revenue from $28 billion to $54 billion over 25 years if exercised. Neither figure measures the lease's present value or cash available to Riot equity.

The capital plan depends on debt that has not closed

Riot estimates reimbursement of up to $4 million per IT MW for qualifying modules owned by Anthropic and $2 million per MW for Riot's site and electrical work. Across 910 MW, the illustrative uses are $3.64 billion and $1.82 billion respectively, or $5.46 billion in total. Ownership of the modules remains with Anthropic even if Riot finances their reimbursement.

Riot's proposed project borrowing of 80% to 90% of cost would provide about $4.37 billion to $4.91 billion of debt against those costs, leaving approximately $550 million to $1.09 billion of residual project funding before fees and reserves. No Corsicana loan closing, pricing or construction recourse terms are established.

At September 30, Riot reported $950 million of liquidity, including $202 million of bitcoin and $79.2 million in restricted cash; unrestricted cash was approximately $669 million. The upper end of the illustrative equity requirement exceeds the total reported liquidity figure, even before other cash demands. Riot says it does not anticipate issuing equity, but that remains a management expectation.

JLL's August 2026 market survey describes 70% to 80% borrowing against project cost for less creditworthy or noncredit tenant structures, versus up to 85% for top tier hyperscaler loans. Applied to Riot's $5.46 billion cost estimate, 70% to 80% would require about $1.09 billion to $1.64 billion of residual funding. That calculation illustrates the effect of different financing terms. It is neither an offered term sheet nor a prediction about Corsicana.

The fallback can finance modules by reducing future rent

If acceptable project financing cannot be obtained after commercially reasonable efforts, the filed lease summary provides for Anthropic to fund qualifying module reimbursements and recover them through future rent credits at an implied 12% annual financing rate. Riot would still need to fund its estimated $1.82 billion of site work.

As a scale illustration, amortizing the full $3.64 billion reimbursement amount over an assumed 15 equal annual periods at 12% would absorb roughly $534 million of rent annually. The contract does not specify that simplified schedule; actual credits depend on qualifying amounts, commencement dates and terms. The fallback could materially reduce collectible rent.

Distributable cash would also reflect debt service, reserves, maintenance and corporate needs, making the 99% NOI margin a poor proxy for returns to shareholders.

Tenant concentration and the missing credit backstop

Anthropic is also the customer on Riot's 191 MW Rockdale lease, bringing its disclosed commitments to 1,101 MW of Riot's 1,151 MW contracted AI IT capacity. The contractual payment obligation transfers utilization risk but cannot guarantee collection from a distressed tenant.

In a separate 401 MW Anthropic lease, TeraWulf disclosed Google credit support for specified payment default and insolvency scenarios. Riot's supplied Corsicana disclosures do not establish an equivalent third party backstop. That difference matters when lenders assess the strength of contracted payments.

Moody's analysts Hanna Sundqvist and David Hamilton warned in July 2026: “A completed AI data center is not necessarily a cash-flow-generating asset.” At Corsicana, funding, energization, contract commencement and collection remain separate tests.

The financing and rent milestones to watch

Staged financing and at least partial rent commencement are the most likely outcome in CTOL's judgment if Anthropic performs and the power infrastructure meets delivery tests. A plausible weaker outcome is that lenders advance less than Riot assumes and 12% rent credits reduce cash collections; a more severe, less likely outcome involves material delivery delays or tenant payment stress. No probabilities are implied.

The evidence to watch is the promised lease exhibit, binding debt terms, capacity earning rent, credits and cash collected in Riot's SEC filings. A revenue line alone would not prove that all 400 MW of Phase 1 has commenced rent or that the corresponding cash has been collected.

With moderate confidence, at least 200 MW of Corsicana capacity will have commenced rent by December 31, 2027; an MW level disclosure in Riot's FY2027 Form 10-K or an earlier filing would falsify that call if fewer than 200 MW had commenced rent by that date.