{"id":138086,"date":"2026-08-13T01:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T01:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/138086\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T01:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T01:31:23","slug":"ai-firm-anthropic-tied-to-9-1-billion-deal-at-former-alcoa-site-in-rockdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/138086\/","title":{"rendered":"AI firm Anthropic tied to $9.1 billion deal at former Alcoa site in Rockdale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> The former Alcoa smelting facility in Rockdale. Developer Riot Platforms selected AMD as the first tenant for a 200-acre data center campus planned on a portion of the site. Riot purchased the northern portion of the smelting site for $96 million, funded through the sale of about 1,080 bitcoin. <\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence company\u00a0Anthropic has been tied to a more than $9 billion lease in Milam County.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Riot Platforms Inc. revealed the deal with “one of the world’s leading frontier AI labs” in its quarterly filings<\/a> Monday. Riot Platforms, which develops bitcoin mines and data centers, is behind part of the\u00a0major redevelopment of Alcoa Corp.’s<\/a> former smelting site near Rockdale, which is about 60 miles northeast of Austin.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Riot itself did not name the company, but Bloomberg cited sources close to the deal who confirmed the Claude creator is behind the deal.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Riot described the deal as a 20-year, $9.1 billion lease to run through 2048, with the potential to escalate to $16.1 billion if the company executes two five-year extensions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The specifics of the deal include 191 megawatts of information technology load, which is enough to power between 38,200 and 47,700 Texas homes during peak summer conditions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

TECH NEWS: Blue Origin may bring 2,000 jobs to Hutto after city approves incentives for $650M project<\/a> <\/p>\n

Neither company responded to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

Anthropic’s lease adds to Riot’s growing Milam County investment. <\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the developer announced that global\u00a0chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.<\/a> would be the first tenant in a 200-acre data center under a $1 billion deal. The 10-year agreement is expected to generate $311 million in revenue and includes three five-year extension options.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Riot completed development of the digital infrastructure site in 2023.\u00a0According to the company, the Rockdale campus now has 700 megawatts of power capacity connected to the Texas grid, fiber connectivity and a dedicated water supply. Riot filed documents to add another 40,000-square-foot building earlier this year. The site employs an estimated 250 people. <\/p>\n

Milam County approved a 10-year property tax breaks for Riot Platforms earlier this year as the company prepares to expand operations and grow its campus. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

The county agreement provides payments in lieu of county property taxes equal to $1.35 million annually so long as Riot invests at least $1.8 billion and creates 50 jobs with a median salary of $89,000 at the campus. <\/p>\n

The former Alcoa smelting site<\/a>, which officially closed in 2017<\/a> but ceased production a decade prior, has become a draw for large technology companies and developers. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

Riot Platforms’ development at the site is a small portion of a planned nearly 50-square-mile advanced manufacturing and logistics campus being developed largely by Dallas-based Xebec Holdings LLC. \u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Alcoa smelting facility in Rockdale. Developer Riot Platforms selected AMD as the first tenant for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37931,53,68205,68207,67257,67287,68206,68204],"class_list":["post-138086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-alcoa","tag-anthropic","tag-milam-county","tag-northern-portion","tag-riot-platforms","tag-rockdale","tag-rockdale-campus","tag-smelting-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}