CleanSpark signed a 20-year lease worth up to $6.6 billion in contracted revenue for its Sandersville, Georgia, data center campus, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miner announced July 14. The tenant is an unnamed, high-investment-grade technology company that will fill 175 megawatts (MW) of critical IT capacity starting in late 2027, and shares jumped as much as 22% on the news.
For more than a year, skeptics said CleanSpark was burning cash on land and power contracts a pure bitcoin miner didn’t need. CEO Matt Schultz has spent just as long calling it a deliberate wager on scarcity. This week, the wager produced its first signed check.
A $6.6 Billion Lease Four Years in the Making
The agreement is a triple net lease, meaning the tenant covers taxes, insurance and maintenance rather than CleanSpark. It runs 20 years with two five-year extension options that could push total contracted revenue to $11.6 billion, according to the company’s formal announcement.
Divide $6.6 billion by 20 years and it works out to roughly $330 million a year, which is exactly the average annual net operating income (NOI, the cash left after operating costs) CleanSpark says the lease will generate. That math holds because the company expects an NOI margin near 100%, meaning almost every dollar of rent falls to the bottom line.
- $6.6 billion in contracted revenue over the initial 20-year term, rising to $11.6 billion with both extensions
- 175 MW of critical IT load, with phased deliveries beginning in the fourth quarter of 2027
- $330 million in average annual NOI at a margin close to 100%
- $10 million to $12 million in estimated landlord project costs per MW, implying roughly $1.75 billion to $2.1 billion to build out the site
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC advised CleanSpark on the deal and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP handled legal work, the company said. Sandersville has run bitcoin mining operations since 2022, and Washington County Mayor Jimmy Andrews welcomed the expansion.
“CleanSpark has been a pillar of the Sandersville community for many years, providing job market stability, tax revenue, and broad support for what makes our part of the world special,” Andrews said.
The Stock CleanSpark Investors Almost Gave Up On
A month before this announcement, CLSK shares had fallen roughly 28% over four weeks, and a Seeking Alpha contributor reiterated a sell rating on the AI pivot, arguing rivals like CoreWeave had far cheaper access to capital. Fiscal second quarter results hadn’t helped: a net loss of $378.3 million, or $1.52 a share, badly missed the 41 cent loss analysts expected, on revenue of $136.4 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.
Even the operational wins came with caveats. Just a week before the lease news, CleanSpark posted a record 50 exahash-per-second (EH/s) hashrate, and the stock rose only modestly. Traders Union analyst Anton Kharitonov said at the time he saw little reason to buy.
“Until buyers reclaim higher ground above $14.06, I remain defensive and see little justification for new long positions here,” Kharitonov said.
Then Sandersville landed. Shares surged as much as 22% intraday before settling for a 12% gain to close at $13.85, while peers Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, Hut 8 and HIVE Digital Technologies barely moved, a sign this was a company-specific catalyst rather than a sector rally.
We have long believed in the second-mover advantage in this sector: grow our portfolio as the market matures, then execute with excellent terms and velocity.
Matt Schultz, CleanSpark’s CEO and chairman, said it in the company’s announcement, framing the deal as confirmation of a strategy built years before hyperscalers came calling.
Who Is CleanSpark’s Mystery Tenant?
CleanSpark has not named its Sandersville tenant, describing it only as a high-investment-grade global technology company. The most concrete public lead is a month-old report that a social media giant was already circling the same site, though neither company has confirmed a link to this lease.
In early June, Green Street News Infrastructure sources told TheFly that Meta was in talks to lease space at Sandersville, a facility described then as having roughly 250 MW of total capacity. Whether that conversation is the one that closed on July 14 remains unconfirmed.
What We Know
- The tenant is a single, high-investment-grade global technology company with a triple net lease covering 175 MW
- The same company also signed a letter of intent and exclusivity arrangement over CleanSpark’s entire Texas portfolio
- Deliveries of production-grade infrastructure begin in the fourth quarter of 2027
What’s Unconfirmed
- The tenant’s identity, including whether it is the same company Green Street linked to Sandersville in June
- Whether CleanSpark or the tenant will formally label the workloads as artificial intelligence (AI) or high-performance computing
- Whether the Texas letter of intent converts into a signed lease, and on what terms
The confidentiality itself is a feature, not an oversight. CleanSpark has said the tenant’s investment-grade rating helps the company’s own financing options for a multi-decade construction project.
How CleanSpark’s Georgia Deal Stacks Up Against Rivals
| Deal | Tenant | Term | Disclosed Contract Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| CleanSpark, Sandersville, Georgia | Undisclosed technology company | 20 years, plus two 5-year options | $6.6 billion ($11.6 billion with extensions) |
| Riot Platforms, Rockdale, Texas | Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | 10 years | $636 million |
The comparison shows why Wall Street took notice. CleanSpark’s single Georgia lease carries a contract value roughly ten times larger than Riot’s comparable AMD arrangement, even before counting the pending Texas letter of intent covering 718 acres and up to 885 MW.
CleanSpark is far from alone in chasing this shift. Research cited by CryptoRank shows more than $70 billion in AI and HPC contracts have now been announced across public bitcoin miners, with CoinShares estimating listed miners could pull as much as 70% of revenue from AI work by year end.
Still a Bitcoin Miner
None of this replaces bitcoin mining yet. CleanSpark produced 614 bitcoin in June, reported in its early July update, and ended the month holding 13,924 bitcoin, up from 13,470 at the end of May. Calendar year 2026 production reached 3,724 bitcoin through June 30.
The company’s fleet ran 225,137 deployed miners against 1.8 gigawatts (GW) of contracted power, with 808 MW utilized to hit that 50 EH/s hashrate peak. Operations span Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming today, with roughly 853 MW active across those four states, while South Dakota and Texas sites are still under development.
Schultz has described the arrangement in blunt terms on past earnings calls, casting mining as the funding engine behind the buildout. CleanSpark hired Jeffrey Thomas as SVP of AI Data Centers and picked Submer as a cooling partner, moves the company disclosed alongside December’s mining update.
“Bitcoin mining funds the platform, AI monetizes it, and we intend to do both exceptionally well,” Schultz said.
The Execution Risk Between Now and Late 2027
Nothing about Sandersville is finished. Building 175 MW of critical IT load at $10 million to $12 million per MW takes real capital, and CleanSpark carried $30.5 million in construction contractual obligations and $17 million tied up in modular immersion data centers as of March 31, 2026.
Short interest sat near 33% heading into the announcement, a level that can exaggerate price swings in either direction. CleanSpark says it is building high-capacity AI campuses designed for scale in both Georgia and Texas, but the Texas piece remains a letter of intent, not a signed lease, and the tenant could still walk away from that exclusivity.
CleanSpark reports fiscal third quarter results on Aug. 6, 2026, the next checkpoint for whether the Sandersville math survives contact with the company’s actual books.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Could CleanSpark’s Sandersville Lease Last?
The initial term runs 20 years from signing in 2026, with two five-year extension options built into the agreement. If the tenant exercises both, the lease could run until around 2056, nearly matching the horizon utilities use for major power infrastructure.
Has CleanSpark Confirmed Who the Tenant Is?
No. CleanSpark’s own SEC filing on the transaction confirms the 175 MW of IT capacity but does not name the counterparty, describing it only as a high-investment-grade global technology company.
What Happens to CleanSpark’s Texas Sites Next?
The same tenant signed a letter of intent and exclusivity arrangement covering CleanSpark’s Sealy campus, 271 acres with nearly 300 MW planned, and its Brazoria campus, 447 acres supporting an initial 300 MW load with room to expand to 600 MW. Neither site has a signed lease yet.
Is CleanSpark Still Profitable From Bitcoin Mining?
CleanSpark sold bitcoin at an average price of $69,056 in June, selling only 429 of the 614 bitcoin it mined that month and banking the rest, a pattern that has made it one of the larger corporate bitcoin holders among public miners.
Which Wall Street Analysts Raised Price Targets After the Deal?
Citizens initiated coverage with a Market Outperform rating and a $27 price target. Chardan raised its target to $19 from $16 while keeping a Buy rating, and Needham lifted its target to $18 from $17.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. CleanSpark is a publicly traded company and its shares carry significant volatility risk, including exposure to bitcoin prices and construction execution risk on unbuilt data center projects. Figures are accurate as of publication on July 16, 2026, and readers should consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.
