AMD Locks Up 2.5 Gigawatts of AI Data Center Capacity in $14 Billion Core Scientific Deal
AMD leases 530 megawatts across five U.S. sites for 15 years and grants Core Scientific a warrant for 30 million shares, with reservation rights to scale to 2.5GW by 2028.
AMD signed a deal with Core Scientific on July 27 to secure up to 2.5 gigawatts of U.S. AI data center capacity, in an agreement worth more than $14 billion in base contracted revenue. The immediate commitment covers roughly 530 megawatts of critical IT load across five U.S. sites under 15-year leases, with three five-year renewal options baked in. AMD also holds a reservation right on an additional 1,925 megawatts through December 2028, meaning the deal can scale nearly 5x if AMD exercises it.
Power, not chips, is now the binding constraint on AI buildouts, and this deal is a bet by AMD that securing gigawatts of leased capacity years in advance is worth more than owning the real estate itself. Core Scientific — a former bitcoin miner that pivoted hard into AI infrastructure hosting after its 2024 bankruptcy emergence — becomes AMD’s landlord for a chunk of its Instinct GPU deployment capacity, joining a wave of crypto-to-AI infrastructure conversions that includes similar deals from Nvidia-aligned hyperscalers.
The equity component is the part worth watching. AMD received a warrant for up to 30 million Core Scientific shares at a $23.47 strike price, vesting at a rate of 12,222 shares per megawatt of critical IT load actually delivered. That structure ties AMD’s upside directly to Core Scientific hitting its buildout milestones — AMD doesn’t just rent the power, it gets equity exposure to the landlord’s execution. Core Scientific’s stock rose roughly 4% in premarket trading on the news; AMD’s dipped about 4%, tracking a broader pullback across chipmakers that day.
This follows AMD’s separate 6-gigawatt infrastructure agreement with Meta earlier in 2026, underscoring how aggressively AMD is trying to lock in deployment capacity to compete with Nvidia’s dominant share of AI accelerator deployments. Capacity starts coming online in 2027. For AMD, the calculus is straightforward: MI-series GPU shipments are worthless without somewhere to plug them in, and every gigawatt secured now is a gigawatt Nvidia’s customers can’t claim later.