By Nate Wolf
Cipher Digital rose sharply Wednesday after the data-center operator announced a new 15-year lease with a hyperscaler at one of its facilities -- yet another sign of robust demand for artificial-intelligence capacity.
The agreement, Cipher's third data-center campus lease, will see the company develop a new high-performance computing center at one of its existing sites. Cipher didn't name the customer or give financial details, but it did say the tenant is an investment-grade hyperscaler.
The company also closed a revolving credit facility of up to $200 million, with an additional accordion option of up to $50 million. Morgan Stanley is the lead bookrunner for the facility, which Cipher will use to support working capital, fund growth projects, and improve liquidity.
Cipher stock jumped 6.8% to $15.90 on Wednesday. Shares are now up almost 500% over the past 12 months.
The company, which is transitioning from a Bitcoin miner into a data-center operator, has benefited from surging demand for AI computing capacity. Hyperscalers and cloud providers typically turn to partners like Cipher for quick access to facilities and power, which remain in short supply.
Cipher announced a $5.5 billion, 15-year deal in November to provide space and power for AI workloads for Amazon Web Services, Amazon.com's cloud-computing business. It also has an agreement that could be worth up to $9 billion with Google partner and cloud platform Fluidstack.
"While the update reinforces the company's ongoing transition toward high-performance computing (HPC) / AI hosting, it also signals continued demand for the broader market, which should have positive readthroughs to CIFR's peers," wrote Clear Street analyst Brian Dobson in a research note Wednesday.
Clear Street reiterated a Buy rating and a $32 price target for the stock.
A couple of peers making the pivot to high-performance computing from crypto mining were also on the rise Wednesday. TeraWulf jumped 3.3% and Hut 8 climbed 4%. IREN shares slipped 0.5%.
Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 25, 2026 13:27 ET (17:27 GMT)
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