Anthropic Paying 33% Above Market for AI Capacity, JPMorgan Says
Mon, August 17, 2026 at 7:27 PM GMT+3 2 min read
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The AI race may be driving a new pricing benchmark. JPMorgan estimates Anthropic agreed to pay roughly $2.4 per watt per year for capacity at Riot Platforms, Inc's (NASDAQ:RIOT) Texas data center — about 33% above the firm's estimated industry average of $1.8 per watt per year — suggesting that ready-to-deploy AI infrastructure is commanding a growing premium as demand outpaces supply.
Anthropic's Lease Suggests AI Infrastructure Pricing Power Is Strengthening
The pricing insight comes from JPMorgan's analysis of Riot's newly signed 191-megawatt data center lease with Anthropic. According to the bank, the contract's implied pricing sits well above prevailing market levels, reinforcing the view that companies building frontier AI models are willing to pay up for capacity which can be delivered quickly.
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The economics are significant. The base 20-year agreement is expected to generate approximately $9.1 billion in total contract value, with two optional five-year extensions increasing the potential value to $16.1 billion. Riot plans to deliver the first 96 MW of capacity by December 2027 and the remaining 95 MW by June 2028.
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JPMorgan Sees Scarce Power Driving Premium Pricing
JPMorgan believes the premium reflects more than Anthropic's willingness to spend. The bank pointed to tightening supply-demand dynamics for AI infrastructure, particularly sites with existing grid access and near-term delivery timelines. Riot's Corsicana campus, which already has approved interconnection capacity and is partially energized, is also under a non-binding letter of intent covering its full 756 MW, underscoring continued demand for large-scale AI deployments.
The analysts also argued that recent actions by Texas regulators could further increase the value of power-ready campuses by making existing capacity more difficult to replicate. That, in turn, could support elevated pricing for operators with shovel-ready infrastructure.
What Investors Should Watch Next
The key question is whether Anthropic's pricing proves to be an outlier or the beginning of a broader repricing across the AI infrastructure market.
If Riot secures a binding lease for its 756 MW Corsicana campus at comparable economics, it would strengthen the argument that power — not GPUs — is becoming the scarcest asset in the AI buildout.
For investors, future lease pricing may matter just as much as megawatts contracted.
Read Also:OpenAI and Anthropic May Be Cheaper Than Chinese AI After All
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This article Anthropic Paying 33% Above Market for AI Capacity, JPMorgan Says originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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