Cryptomining data center firm Cipher Mining has secured Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer.

The company has also announced plans for a new 1GW data center campus in Texas.

Cipher signs on AWS as a customer

Cipher has announced an approximately $5.5 billion, 15-year lease agreement with AWS to provide turnkey space and power for AI workloads.

Under the terms of the lease, Cipher will deliver 300MW of capacity in 2026, including both air and liquid cooling to the racks.

The capacity will be delivered in two phases, expected to begin in July 2026 and complete in the fourth quarter of 2026, with rent commencing in August 2026.

Which of Cipher’s site(s) would host the capacity for AWS is unclear.

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.

Cipher's current online capacity totals 477MW, with another ~150MW due to come online by 2026. Its existing portfolio includes live cryptomining sites around Texas in Odessa (200MW), alongside Alborz and two other joint venture sites known as Bear and Chief (120MW combined). Its Black Pearl site totals 150MW.

The company has multiple other sites in planning and development around Texas, including Barber Lake (500MW), Reville (70MW, due live 2027), Stingray (100MW, due live in 2026), Mikeska (500MW), Milsing (500MW), and McLennan (500MW - latter three due live in 2028/2029).

The Amazon deal is the second lease Cipher has signed with a hyperscaler in recent months. In September, it struck a deal to provide AI cloud firm Fluidstack with 168MW of IT capacity at its upcoming Barber Lake site in Colorado City, Texas. The $3bn lease is due to start in October 2026.

The Fluidstack deal was backed by Google, which will take on the lease if the AI cloud startup goes bust. Google also took a stake in Cipher.

Cipher targets 1GW campus in Texas

In its results, Cipher also announced the formation of a joint entity to develop a 1GW site, named Colchis, in West Texas.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cipher is expected to provide the majority of the financing, which would result in an approximately 95 percent equity ownership, assuming standard lease and development terms in a future HPC lease.

The 620-acre Colchis site includes a fully executed 1GW direct connect agreement with American Electric Power (AEP), which will construct the necessary dual interconnection facility for a targeted energization in 2028.

“Last quarter, we discussed our aggressive aim to position Cipher ahead of the curve, anticipating where the industry is heading and aligning our strategy accordingly. Since then, we’ve delivered on that vision, executing two milestone HPC transactions, as well as our most significant pipeline addition to date,” said Mr. Page. “As the industry evolves rapidly and validates our thesis that Tier 1 hyperscalers would turn to Cipher and to non-traditional areas in Texas, we’re more confident than ever that Cipher is among the best-positioned companies in the world to seize additional opportunities created by the growing power shortfall.”

In its Q3 2025 earnings results, Cipher posted a net loss of $3 million.

SoftBank previously invested $50m in Cipher in a deal that gave it first rights to buy the undeveloped Barber Lake site.