Cryptomine and HPC data center firm Cipher Mining has acquired a 250-acre site in Texas, and expanded the size of the site SoftBank has shown interest in acquiring.
As part of its Q4 2024 results, Cipher announced it had closed on the acquisition of Stingray, a data center site in West Texas with 100MW of front-of-the-meter capacity. The site totals 250 acres in Andrews County, west of the city of Andrews. It is expected to energize in Q2 2026.
The company also acquired 337 additional acres of land adjacent to its Barber Lake site in West Texas, and has entered into 60 days of exclusivity with Priority Power to negotiate building an additional 500MW HPC data center adjacent to the current site.
“We had an extremely productive fourth quarter at Cipher, as we continued the on-time execution of our growth and expansion plans,” said Tyler Page, CEO. “With our 2.8 GW pipeline and proven track record of execution, we are confident in our vision of becoming a leading data center developer for HPC infrastructure while remaining best-in-class in Bitcoin mining.”
The company has started construction of Phase I of its Black Pearl site, featuring 150MW of capacity for cryptomining. It is set to go live in Q2 2025. Phase II is set to offer 150MW – the company is evaluating whether this will be for Bitcoin or HPC uses.
Revenue for the quarter was $42 million, adjusted earnings were $51 million, and GAAP net earnings were $18 million. Cipher posted a net loss of $87 million in Q3 2024.
Cipher was spun off from Bitcoin mining hardware giant Bitfury in March 2021 and went public via a merger with blank-check company Good Works Acquisition Corp. According to its latest earnings presentation, Cipher currently claims around 327MW of operating capacity and a total development pipeline of 2.8GW.
Cipher’s current portfolio includes cryptomining sites in Odessa, Texas (207MW). It operates a site in Alborz (40MW), and two other joint venture sites near Andrews, known as Bear (40MW) and Chief (40MW), alongside WindHQ.
Barber Lake is a 587 acre-site located near Colorado City, Texas. It could reportedly offer 800MW at full build-out. It was previously a 250-acre site set to offer 300MW before Cipher’s latest expansion deals.
SoftBank recently invested $50 million in Cipher in a deal that gave it a period of exclusivity to acquire the Barber Lake site – possibly for OpenAI’s Stargate project. There was no mention of any deal with SoftBank in the update, but the exclusivity period is yet to end.
As well as Barber Lake, the company owns a development site known as Reveille in Cotulla that will initially offer 70MW, but is said to be scalable to 200MW.
The company’s presentation also notes options on the Mikeska (500MW, outside Brady), Milsing (500MW, outside Houston), and McLennan (500MW, outside Waco) sites that are expected to energize in 2027.
Last year, Cipher was exploring a potential sale after receiving interest from companies looking to boost computing capabilities.
