What Does TeraWulf Do? Bitcoin Miner to AI Data Center Landlord

TeraWulf is a Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin miner turned AI data center landlord. It builds halls on sites with big grid connections in New York and Kentucky and leases them to AI companies for 10 to 20 years. By August 2026 it had leased 839 MW to Core42, Fluidstack (backed by Google) and Anthropic; about 102 MW was paying rent.

AI DATA CENTERS · Data as at 5 Oct 2026 · Next update: after TeraWulf's Q3 2026 results (6 Nov 2026)
Affects: AI Data Centers · Neoclouds · US

TeraWulf is the second Bitcoin miner on the AI Data Centers layer, after IREN, and the two took different turns. IREN buys the GPUs and rents compute. TeraWulf stops at the building: it leases powered halls, and the tenant brings the computers, which makes it closer to Applied Digital. One of its tenants, Fluidstack, sits on the Neoclouds layer. Read What Is an AI Data Center? first if the terms are new. The latest Kentucky power deal has its own note: TeraWulf doubles Kentucky data center power to 1 GW.

In short: TeraWulf controls grid power and land, builds data center halls and leases them on long contracts to AI tenants who run their own computing inside. It has 839 MW of critical IT leased: 60 MW to Core42 and 378 MW to Fluidstack at Lake Mariner, New York, and 401 MW to Anthropic at Hawesville, Kentucky, under a 20-year lease worth about $19 billion. About 102 MW is earning rent. Behind that sits about 2.1 GW of planned capacity with no tenant yet, led by the Muskie campus in eastern Kentucky, where TeraWulf contracted 1 GW of utility power in October 2026. The stuck step is two clocks: delivering the leased halls on time, and signing tenants for power it has already committed to pay for.

Education only, not advice to buy or sell any security. Figures are from TeraWulf's Form 10-Q for the quarter to 30 June 2026, its second-quarter results release and business update presentation (all 5 August 2026), its Anthropic lease release of 6 July 2026, its Muskie releases of 26 May and 5 October 2026, Kentucky Power's release of 5 October 2026 TeraWulf's full-year 2025 results of 26 February 2026 and its CB-5 lease release of 18 August 2025, dated as shown. All $ figures are US dollars. MW here means critical IT load unless we say gross.

Numbers that matter

Leased capacity

839 MW

Core42 60 MW + Fluidstack 378 MW at Lake Mariner, Anthropic 401 MW at Hawesville · Aug 2026

Contracted

Live and paying rent

102 MW

Revenue-generating critical IT at Lake Mariner after building CB-3 · Jul 2026

Paid

Anthropic lease

~$19bn

20 years, ~401 MW at Justified, Hawesville KY; up to ~$33bn with two five-year extensions · 6 Jul 2026

Signed

Q2 2026 revenue

$44.8m

HPC leasing $31.9m (71%), Bitcoin $12.8m; net loss $(940.8)m, mostly a non-cash warrant charge · 5 Aug 2026

Paid

Unleased pipeline

~2.1 GW

Planned critical IT at Lake Mariner (162 MW), Lake Hawkeye (320), Muskie (800), Chesapeake (800, purchase pending) · Aug 2026

Unleased

Debt

$5.7bn

$3.2bn of 7.75% secured notes at WULF Compute + $2.5bn convertible notes; ~$3.0bn cash incl. restricted · 30 Jun 2026

Funded

Status chips are Second Order's read. All MW figures are critical IT load, the power the tenant's computers can draw, as TeraWulf reports them; gross site power is higher.

What does TeraWulf actually do?

Secure the power. Build the hall. Sign the lease.

Power first. Halls second. Tenants pay rent for 10 to 20 years.

1. It buys sites that already have big grid connections. TeraWulf's model is brownfield: old industrial and power sites with substations and transmission in place. Lake Mariner in Barker, New York is its flagship. In 2026 it added the Justified campus in Hawesville, Kentucky (about 480 MW of gross power and an energised substation), the Muskie campus in Grayson, Kentucky (308 acres and 1 GW of contracted utility power), a long ground lease at Lake Hawkeye in Lansing, New York (about 320 MW of critical IT potential), and a pending purchase of the Morgantown power station in Maryland, the planned Chesapeake campus.
2. It builds the halls in phases. At Lake Mariner the buildings are numbered: WULF Den (2 MW), CB-1 (16 MW), CB-2 (42 MW) and CB-3 (42 MW) are delivered; CB-4 and CB-5 (168 MW each) are under construction. TeraWulf guides to $8–10 million of cost per critical IT MW for this build.
3. It leases each hall to one tenant for a decade or more. Core42's and Fluidstack's Lake Mariner leases run 10 years with two five-year renewals; Anthropic's Hawesville lease runs 20 years with two five-year extensions. The tenant brings and runs the computing; TeraWulf provides the space, power delivery, security and maintenance.

TeraWulf is based in Easton, Maryland. Chairman and CEO Paul Prager put the model in one line in the May 2026 Muskie release: "TeraWulf is fundamentally a power infrastructure company that builds digital infrastructure, not the other way around." In May 2025 the company bought Beowulf Electricity & Data, the firm that had run its construction and operations under a services agreement, adding about 94 employees.

The Bitcoin business is shrinking to make room. At 30 June 2026 TeraWulf's operational hashrate was 5.6 EH/s, down from 12.2 EH/s a year earlier, about 1 bitcoin a day. Two miner buildings at Lake Mariner were repurposed or taken out of service in the first half of 2026 for AI halls. TeraWulf still owned about 53,700 miners, of which about 28,300 were running.

The next growth is in Kentucky. Anthropic's 401 MW at Justified is due to start in the second half of 2027 and be fully delivered in early 2028; Kentucky's Public Service Commission approved the Justified power contract in August 2026. At Muskie, the first 500 MW is targeted to ramp from late 2028, and an amended Kentucky Power agreement signed on 1 October 2026 moves the second 500 MW to 2029, subject to the commission's approval. No Muskie tenant has been announced.

How does TeraWulf make money?

Rent on leased halls, plus what is left of Bitcoin mining. In order:

• HPC lease revenue: $31.9 million in the June 2026 quarter, about 71% of total revenue of $44.8 million. This includes power: tenants are billed for actual power costs at utility rates, passed through without markup, and TeraWulf books that inside lease revenue.
• Bitcoin mining revenue: $12.8 million in the same quarter, against $47.6 million a year earlier, as miners make way for AI halls.
• Profit: adjusted EBITDA was $(18.3) million in the quarter. The net loss of $940.8 million was mostly a $755.7 million non-cash loss on the fair value of warrants, plus $83.9 million of stock-based pay; neither is cash out of the business.
• Contracted, not yet earned: the Anthropic lease alone is about $19 billion over 20 years. TeraWulf says 2025's Core42 and Fluidstack leases and the Abernathy, Texas joint venture added more than $12.8 billion of contracts (counting its 50.1% share of Abernathy, since sold). Full-year 2025 revenue was $168.5 million.
• Selling assets: in July 2026 TeraWulf agreed to sell its 50.1% stake in the Abernathy, Texas joint venture to a Fluidstack-led group for about $530 million, against about $450 million invested. The first $250 million arrived in early July.

Our arithmetic. Anthropic's $19 billion over 20 years averages $950 million a year (19,000 ÷ 20), or about $2.37 million per MW of critical IT per year (950 ÷ 401). TeraWulf has not said how much of that is base rent, escalators or other charges, so treat it as an average, not a rent rate. Only 102 of the 839 leased MW were live in July 2026, about 12% (102 ÷ 839). Building the 336 MW of CB-4 and CB-5 at TeraWulf's $8–10 million per MW guidance implies roughly $2.7–3.4 billion (336 × 8 and 336 × 10).

Who funds the build. At Lake Mariner, bondholders: WULF Compute issued $3.2 billion of 7.75% senior secured notes due 2030 in October 2025. Google's backstop sits underneath. If Fluidstack defaults or becomes insolvent, Google can pay the lease termination fee or pay the rent due and take over the lease. In return Google received warrants for 73.58 million TeraWulf shares at $0.01, about 15% of the 499 million shares outstanding on 4 August 2026 (our arithmetic: 73.58 ÷ 498.97). The parent also carries $2.5 billion of convertible notes and raised about $1.2 billion from new shares in the first half of 2026.

Who gets paid. Builders and equipment makers at Lake Mariner and Hawesville; Kentucky Power and its parent AEP on power and new transmission; bondholders on 7.75% secured debt. Who pays. Core42, Fluidstack (with Google behind it) and Anthropic, monthly, for 10 to 20 years. Money sticks when a hall is delivered and rent starts. Until then, TeraWulf carries the construction cost and, in Kentucky, the utility's minimum charges once service begins.

What limits it?

Delivery first. Unleased power second. Capital third.

1. Rent starts only when halls are handed over. CB-4 is due in phases in the second half of 2026 and CB-5 in early 2027. In July 2026 TeraWulf moved those dates at the tenant's request for extra fit-out work, with rent shifted rather than penalties, and agreed to fund about $150 million of fit-out costs, recovered through higher rent over the lease. Justified must go from purchase to 401 MW for Anthropic by early 2028.
2. It commits to power before it has tenants. Muskie's electric service agreement runs 20 years from an in-service date no earlier than 13 October 2028, with minimum monthly charges set by contracted capacity. It required $310.7 million of collateral, and the transmission agreement up to $320.2 million more, or up to about $630.9 million together (our arithmetic). TeraWulf posted $360.7 million of letters of credit in July 2026. Under the October amendment it has also agreed to fund $100 million of winter bill credits for Kentucky Power's households and the estimated financing costs of a planned 760 MW combined-cycle plant at Big Sandy, according to Kentucky Power, which still needs the commission's approval.
3. Three tenants carry the book. All 839 MW is leased to Core42, Fluidstack and Anthropic. Google's backstop covers only Fluidstack, and only from each lease's start date. TeraWulf put the total at about $3.2 billion when the CB-5 lease was signed in August 2025; $600 million of it became effective when CB-3 was delivered.
4. The build keeps needing capital. Debt was $5.7 billion at 30 June 2026. On 5 October TeraWulf said it plans to upsize its revolving credit facility and raise more senior secured debt to cover letters of credit for its utility deals. Its August presentation still lists Justified's financing as "TBD".

Where the filings are silent we say so. TeraWulf has not published a construction budget or financing plan for Justified, named who provides the investment-grade credit support it expects for the Anthropic lease, disclosed rent per MW on any lease, named a Muskie tenant, or given a closing date for the Morgantown purchase, so we do not estimate those.

Who else does this?

Roles, not a league table.

What separates TeraWulf is where it stops. IREN owns the chips and takes GPU price risk; TeraWulf leases the building and leaves the chips to the tenant, so its revenue is rent on long contracts, with Google behind its largest tenant. The trade-off is that it takes on utility commitments ahead of demand, as at Muskie, and its growth depends on signing the next tenant rather than selling more GPU hours.

What would change this view?

The read on the model weakens if:

• CB-4 or CB-5 slip well past their revised dates, pushing back rent at Lake Mariner.
• Justified misses its second-half 2027 start or its early-2028 full delivery for Anthropic, or its financing proves costlier than planned.
• Muskie reaches its service date with no signed tenant, so minimum power charges start with no rent behind them.
• The Kentucky commission rejects or reshapes the amended Muskie agreement, or the Morgantown purchase fails to close.
• Debt markets tighten, making the planned revolver upsize and new secured debt for letters of credit harder or dearer.

It stays intact while Lake Mariner halls are handed over on the revised dates, Justified is financed and built on schedule, and a named tenant signs for Muskie before its power arrives.

Practical takeaways

• TeraWulf is a data center landlord with a shrinking Bitcoin business: it owns the power and halls, and its tenants own the computers.
• 839 MW leased to Core42, Fluidstack and Anthropic; 102 MW live in July 2026; about 2.1 GW of planned capacity with no tenant yet.
• Anthropic's 20-year, ~$19 billion lease averages about $2.37 million per MW per year (our arithmetic), and starts in the second half of 2027.
• Google backstops Fluidstack's leases and holds warrants for 73.58 million shares, about 15% of shares outstanding (our arithmetic).
• The stuck step is two clocks: handing over leased halls on time, and signing tenants for Kentucky power already contracted.

FAQ

What does TeraWulf do?
TeraWulf is a Nasdaq-listed US company that develops and owns data center campuses with large grid connections and leases the halls to AI companies for 10 to 20 years. The tenants run their own computing inside. It also still mines Bitcoin at its Lake Mariner campus in New York, a business it is shrinking to make room for AI halls.

Is TeraWulf still a Bitcoin miner?
Partly. In the June 2026 quarter Bitcoin brought in $12.8 million of its $44.8 million revenue, while data center leasing brought in $31.9 million. Its operational hashrate fell to 5.6 EH/s at 30 June 2026 from 12.2 EH/s a year earlier, as miner buildings were repurposed for AI tenants.

Where are TeraWulf's data centers?
Its flagship is Lake Mariner in Barker, western New York, where 102 MW was live in July 2026 and buildings CB-4 and CB-5 (168 MW each) are under construction. In Kentucky it owns the Justified campus in Hawesville, leased to Anthropic, and the Muskie campus in Grayson, with 1 GW of contracted utility power. It also holds a ground lease at Lake Hawkeye in Lansing, New York, and has a pending purchase of the Morgantown power station in Maryland, the planned Chesapeake campus.

Who are TeraWulf's customers?
Three tenants lease its 839 MW of critical IT capacity: Core42 (60 MW) and Fluidstack (378 MW) at Lake Mariner, New York, and Anthropic (about 401 MW) at the Justified campus in Hawesville, Kentucky. Google backstops Fluidstack's Lake Mariner lease obligations.

What is TeraWulf's deal with Fluidstack and Google?
Fluidstack, a GPU cloud, leases 378 MW of critical IT at Lake Mariner on 10-year leases with two five-year renewals. Google backstops those leases: if Fluidstack defaults or becomes insolvent, Google can pay the termination fee or pay the rent due and take over the lease. Each backstop starts when its lease commences. TeraWulf put the total at about $3.2 billion in August 2025, and $600 million was effective after CB-3 was delivered. In return Google holds warrants for 73.58 million TeraWulf shares, about 15% of shares outstanding.

What is the TeraWulf Anthropic lease?
A 20-year lease signed in July 2026 for about 401 MW of critical IT at the Justified Data Campus in Hawesville, Kentucky. TeraWulf expects about $19 billion of revenue over the initial term, or up to about $33 billion if Anthropic uses both five-year extensions. Initial capacity is due in the second half of 2027 and full delivery in early 2028.

What is TeraWulf's Muskie data center campus?
A 308-acre site in Grayson, eastern Kentucky, bought in May 2026. Kentucky Power is building a substation connected to its 765 kV network, and an October 2026 amendment raised contracted power to 1 GW, with the first 500 MW targeted to ramp from late 2028 and the second in 2029, subject to approval. No tenant has been announced.

Is TeraWulf a good investment?
We do not make buy or sell calls, and nothing here is a recommendation. We can tell you what it owns, how it gets paid and which numbers would change the picture. The decision is yours.

Keep reading on the map

• The layers: AI Data Centers · Neoclouds
• The terms: What Is an AI Data Center? · What Is a Data Center Lease? · Hyperscale vs Colocation Data Centers · How Long Does It Take to Build an AI Data Center?
• The tenants: What Does Fluidstack Do? · What Does Google Do?
• Other miners and landlords: What Does IREN Do? · What Does Applied Digital Do? · Cipher's hall clock
• Where it happens: US · TeraWulf Muskie 1 GW Wire

The members cut on paying for power before the tenant arrives is already live: When utilities bill data centers before power, where does cash stick?. This page stays the free Stack read of the TeraWulf model.

Sean

Writes Second Order by TKN — a plain-English map of AI infrastructure. Who gets paid, where money sticks, which step is stuck. Not investment advice.

Author page → · Editorial standards →

How we check this

Figures come from TeraWulf's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026, its second-quarter results release and business update presentation (all 5 August 2026), its Anthropic and Abernathy release of 6 July 2026, its Muskie acquisition release of 26 May 2026, its Form 8-K of 5 October 2026, Kentucky Power's release of 5 October 2026 TeraWulf's full-year 2025 results of 26 February 2026 and its CB-5 lease release of 18 August 2025, plus the peer filings listed below, each dated. Where we work something out ourselves, the arithmetic is shown in full. TeraWulf has not published a Justified budget or financing plan, the provider of the Anthropic credit support, rent per MW on any lease, a Muskie tenant or a Morgantown closing date, so we do not estimate those. Social media posts and press reports are not used.

Last reviewed: 21 Oct 2026 (added the total size of Google's backstop, about $3.2bn) · Next review: after TeraWulf's Q3 2026 results (6 Nov 2026) or CB-4 delivery
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References

1. TeraWulf, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (company, SEC filing), 5 Aug 2026 — lease terms (Core42, Fluidstack, Anthropic), Google backstop and 73.58m warrants, power pass-through, Muskie electric service agreement, minimum charges and collateral, Justified purchase, Bitcoin fleet and hashrate, equity raised
2. TeraWulf, TeraWulf Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results (Exhibit 99.1) (company, SEC exhibit 99.1), 5 Aug 2026 — Q2 revenue and HPC share, 102 MW revenue-generating, 336 MW under construction, $8–10m per MW cost guidance, $600m Google credit support, site updates
3. TeraWulf, Q2 2026 Business Update presentation (Exhibit 99.2) (company, SEC exhibit 99.2), 5 Aug 2026 — 839 MW leased by tenant, 2.1 GW pipeline by site, illustrative $10–12m per MW and ~85% NOI margin target, Lake Mariner lease amendments, debt and share count
4. TeraWulf, TeraWulf Announces Anthropic Lease at Justified Data Campus and Sale of Majority Interest in Abernathy Joint Venture to Fluidstack (Exhibit 99.1) (company, SEC exhibit 99.1), 6 Jul 2026 — 20-year, ~401 MW Anthropic lease, ~$19bn contracted revenue, delivery 2H 2027 to early 2028, Abernathy stake sale
5. TeraWulf, TeraWulf Expands Infrastructure Platform with Acquisition of 1+ GW Eastern Kentucky HPC Campus (Exhibit 99.1) (company, SEC exhibit 99.1), 26 May 2026 — Muskie Data Campus purchase, Kentucky Power 345 kV substation on the 765 kV network, phase timing
6. TeraWulf, Current Report on Form 8-K: Muskie expansion and financing strategy update (company, SEC filing), 5 Oct 2026 — Muskie contracted power raised from 500 MW to 1 GW, second phase moved to 2029 subject to approval, plan to upsize the revolver and raise more secured debt for letters of credit
7. Kentucky Power, Kentucky Power, TeraWulf Finalize Expanded Agreement Providing for $100 Million in Customer Benefits (utility press release), 5 Oct 2026 — $100m of TeraWulf-funded winter bill credits, financing costs of the 760 MW Big Sandy plant, collateral, filing for approval
8. TeraWulf, TeraWulf Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results (Exhibit 99.1) (company, SEC exhibit 99.1), 26 Feb 2026 — 2025 revenue, $12.8bn of contracts signed in 2025, Lake Mariner building schedule
9. TeraWulf, TeraWulf Announces Fluidstack Expansion with 160 MW CB-5 Lease at Lake Mariner (company press release), 18 Aug 2025 — 160 MW CB-5 lease, Google's incremental $1.4bn backstop taking its total to about $3.2bn, 32.5m additional warrants
10. IREN, Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026 (company, SEC filing), 27 Aug 2026 — three-layer model, ~5 GW executed grid agreements, ~40 MW AI Cloud operating, project table by site, 23.2 EH/s on ~380 MW of mining, Horizon delivery terms and grace periods, Microsoft and NVIDIA concentration, RPO $5.1bn + leases $11.4bn, Mirantis and Nostrum, 685 employees, risk factors
11. Applied Digital, Applied Digital Reports Fiscal First Quarter 2027 Results (company), 7 Oct 2026 — 1.41 GW leased, 250 MW live, about $36bn contracted, HPC and hosting revenue, debt and cash