Shares of Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms surged nearly 9% as activist investor Starboard Value LP urged the company to accelerate its pivot from bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure. Starboard believes Riot's substantial 1.7 gigawatt power capacity, particularly at its Texas sites in Corsicana and Rockdale, positions it for high-margin artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (AI/HPC) hosting deals.
Starboard projects that monetizing this power capacity could generate over $1.6 billion in annual EBITDA, citing Riot's recent $311 million, 10-year deal with AMD as a positive indicator. With a market capitalization of $4.25 billion, Riot, the fifth-largest U.S. bitcoin miner, has seen its shares rise 19% in the past year, though they remain significantly below 2021 bull market highs. The company has underperformed peers who have more rapidly adopted AI strategies.
This is not Starboard's first engagement with Riot; the activist investor previously requested in December 2024 that Riot convert mining sites into data centers for AI workloads. The shift toward AI infrastructure offers Riot a path to diversify revenue as demand for data centers capable of powering advanced AI models like OpenAI's GPT-4o intensifies. Riot's significant power access is a critical asset in the current energy-constrained market, potentially allowing it to lease capacity to major AI firms. Starboard is pressing CEO Jason Les and Executive Chairman Benjamin Yi to act with urgency in positioning Riot as a long-term AI infrastructure provider.