Finance
What to Know:
- An activist investor, ever the dramatist, has taken to penning letters that would make even the most verbose of Victorian novelists blush, urging Riot Platforms to abandon its humble bitcoin-mining roots for the glittering realm of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
- Starboard, with the fervor of a prophet, claims Riot’s 1.7 gigawatts of power capacity could fuel “premier” data centers, generating a staggering $1.6 billion in annual EBITDA. One wonders if this is a business plan or a particularly elaborate bedtime story.
- Despite a recent AMD deal, Riot has lagged rivals who moved earlier into AI, prompting Starboard to demand urgent action. One might say the company is as industrious as a sloth in a race against a clock.
Shares of Riot Platforms (RIOT) have ascended nearly 9% in a dramatic display of shareholder optimism, following a letter from the aforementioned activist investor, whose words are as sharp as a well-polished quill. The aim? To transform Riot into a long-term AI infrastructure provider, a noble goal if ever there was one.
Riot’s 1.7 gigawatts of fully available power capacity make the company “well positioned to execute high-quality AI/HPC deals,” said Starboard, who clearly believes in the power of hyperbole. The Texas sites, Corsicana and Rockdale, are hailed as “premier” locations for data center development-though one might question if “premier” is merely a fancy way of saying “somewhat conveniently located.”
Starboard, ever the financial visionary, posits that Riot could generate more than $1.6 billion in annual EBITDA if it monetizes its power like a seasoned Wall Street broker. The group also praised Riot’s recent deal with AMD, which is projected to yield $311 million over 10 years-a sum that, in the grand scheme of things, is about as substantial as a feather in a hurricane.
With a market cap of $4.25 billion, Texas-based Riot is the fifth-largest bitcoin mining company in the U.S. Its shares have risen by 19% in the past year, but remain lower by about 80% from highs hit during the 2021 bitcoin bull market. They’ve also underperformed miners like IREN, Cipher Mining, and Hut 8, which were quicker to recognize and transition to AI strategies. One might say Riot is as agile as a tortoise in a sprint.
Starboard was Riot’s fourth-largest shareholder as of the end of last year, and this isn’t its first push on the company. In December 2024, Starboard requested that Riot convert some of its bitcoin mining sites into data centers capable of hosting HPC machines to support big tech companies. It’s clear the investor has a penchant for dramatic overhauls.
While Riot Platforms has built its business around bitcoin mining, the pivot toward AI infrastructure could diversify revenue as power-hungry models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and others drive data center demand. Riot’s power access, a rare commodity in the current energy-constrained data center market, could be used to lease capacity to major AI firms-though one suspects the real magic lies in the marketing, not the machinery.
Starboard urged CEO Jason Les and Executive Chairman Benjamin Yi to act “with urgency” and position Riot as a long-term infrastructure provider for AI workloads. One might wonder if “urgency” is merely a euphemism for “do it before the next quarter’s earnings call.”
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2026-02-18 20:47