Overview
- Starboard publicly urged CEO Jason Les and Executive Chairman Benjamin Yi to accelerate AI/HPC hosting deals, calling the opportunity urgent given surging demand for ready-to-power data center capacity.
- Riot’s Corsicana and Rockdale campuses in Texas offer roughly 1.7 gigawatts of available power that Starboard characterizes as premier sites for hyperscalers and other investment-grade tenants.
- Riot’s January lease with AMD at Rockdale, estimated at $311 million over an initial 10-year term, was praised by Starboard as a positive proof of concept rather than a scale-defining agreement.
- Riot shares rose roughly 5% to 9% after the letter, while Starboard disclosed a meaningful position of about 12.7 million shares and an increased stake in its latest 13F filing.
- Mining margins have deteriorated with weaker Bitcoin prices, and Riot sold a record 1,818 BTC in December for $161.6 million as peers that moved earlier into AI/HPC outperformed.