Alphabet Guarantees $3.2B in Leases With Crypto Miners

Alphabet has backed $3.2 billion in lease guarantees across ten projects, securing roughly 2.4 gigawatts of capacity from former Bitcoin miners now pivoting to AI data centers, according to deal terms disclosed by the companies and regulatory filings.

The largest known arrangement involves Cipher Mining. In September 2025, Alphabet agreed to backstop $1.4 billion of a $3 billion, 10-year AI hosting lease between Fluidstack and Cipher Mining. The lease covers 168 MW of capacity at a Texas facility, with room to expand to 244 MW. In exchange for the guarantee, Alphabet received warrants for a roughly 5.4% equity stake in Cipher, the company said.

Alphabet also backed a separate $1.8 billion guarantee in a deal between Fluidstack and TeraWulf covering 200 MW, according to terms disclosed by the miner.

Bitcoin miners have spent years securing cheap power and building electrical infrastructure. The pivot to AI workloads is less a strategic reinvention than a swap of tenants. The buildings and power contracts remain. The GPUs replacing the ASICs are different machines. Both require the same thing: reliable, cheap electricity at scale.

Rather than acquiring these companies, Alphabet uses lease guarantees and warrant positions for flexibility. It gets the power and space without taking on operational complexity. In December 2025, Alphabet announced plans to acquire clean energy developer Intersect Power for $4.75 billion plus debt. Intersect's portfolio targets 10.8 GW by 2028. The Intersect deal gives Alphabet control over greenfield renewable energy and data center projects. Combined with the crypto miner partnerships, Alphabet is building a two-pronged strategy: use existing miner infrastructure for near-term capacity, and develop new clean energy projects for long-term scalability, the companies said.

For publicly traded crypto miners with high-performance computing pivots, Alphabet's willingness to backstop multi-billion-dollar leases provides a credibility stamp. Having Alphabet as a guarantor, and in Cipher's case a 5.4% equity holder, shifts the risk calculus for the miners, the companies said.

The deals are long duration. The Cipher-Fluidstack lease runs ten years. A slowdown in AI demand growth or a shift in compute requirements could alter the economics, Cipher said. Alphabet's guarantee protects Fluidstack's lease payments. It does not protect the underlying business model from becoming obsolete.