MARA rises 14% after announcing 2 GW Texas campus

MARA said it will acquire a 1,200-acre powered land site in Matagorda County, southwest of Houston, to build a digital infrastructure campus that could provide up to 2 gigawatts of grid capacity for high-performance computing and bitcoin mining. The announcement came as the company's stock rose about 14% in early trading.

The acquisition is structured as milestone-based payments of up to $600 million rather than an immediate purchase. An SEC filing says payments will be made as the project reaches development milestones tied to regulatory approvals, land acquisition, site access, authorization to receive power and the signing of a data-center tenant. The seller, HIF, will retain a minority ownership interest after MARA secures a high-performance computing tenant.

MARA expects the site to reach roughly 1 gigawatt of grid capacity by October 2027 and up to 2 gigawatts by the second quarter of 2028, subject to approvals from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The company said that, if fully energized, the campus would increase MARA's total power portfolio to about 4.8 gigawatts and could support thousands of permanent jobs in the area.

The project will be developed with Starwood Digital Ventures, a partnership announced in February. Under that agreement, Starwood will handle design, development, construction and tenant sourcing, while MARA will provide powered sites and energy infrastructure. MARA said the campus has already drawn interest from potential high-performance computing tenants.

Fred Thiel, MARA's chairman and chief executive, wrote in a company statement, “We believe sites with access to reliable, scalable power will become increasingly valuable.”

MARA has been expanding its operations in energy-intensive computing, including bitcoin mining and data-center support. The Texas site is part of the company's effort to secure large powered locations that can host AI workloads and cryptocurrency infrastructure while leveraging grid access and local energy resources.