TeraWulf has formed a new joint venture with AI cloud firm Fluidstack, backed by Google, to develop a data center campus in Texas. It is the latest in a series of deals between the companies.

Nasdaq-listed cryptomine and HPC data center provider TeraWulf this week announced that it has executed a long-term high-performance computing (HPC) joint venture with Fluidstack.

Under the agreement, the companies will develop and deliver 168MW of critical IT load (240MW gross) at a new 120-acre data center campus in Abernathy, Texas. The facility is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2026.

The 25-year hosting commitment represents approximately $9.5 billion in contracted revenue to the joint venture. TeraWulf will hold a majority stake of 51 percent in the joint venture.

Abernathy is a city in Hale and Lubbock Counties, some 22 miles north of Lubbock. Powered land firm Outlaw Ventures is developing a 120-acre, 600MW site in Aberthany, but it's unclear if this is the site TeraWulf and Fluidstack will be occupying.

The joint venture will be project-financed, with Google backing approximately $1.3bn of Fluidstack’s long-term lease obligations to support project-related debt financing.

If Fluidstack becomes insolvent or defaults on a lease payment, Google has the option to pay a lease termination fee or take on the lease as a tenant on a discounted rate.

TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager said: “What began as a single site has matured into a repeatable, credit-enhanced platform model backed by Tier-1 partners. This is exactly the evolution we outlined: converting advantaged infrastructure positions into contracted megawatts with investment-grade counterparties and doing so at strategic scale.”

“Fluidstack is proud to partner again with TeraWulf as we expand our platform to support next-generation GPU clusters for foundation model developers,” added César Maklary, co-founder and president of Fluidstack. “TeraWulf brings exceptional operational discipline, energy expertise, and development scale at precisely the moment the market requires hardened, sustainable infrastructure.”

This week saw TeraWulf announce plans to raise $500 million via convertible notes to fund a portion of the cost of construction of the planned campus in Abernathy.

The joint venture also has the right to develop subsequent phases at the Abernathy campus beyond the initial 168MW.

TeraWulf also said it has first refusal to partner with Fluidstack for up to 51 percent of the next Fluidstack-led ~168MW data center project on substantially similar commercial terms.

TeraWulf said its contracted HPC capacity now exceeds 510MW of critical IT load, and is targeting another 250-500MW annually.

Morgan Stanley is serving as the sole financial advisor to TeraWulf. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Stutzman, Bromberg, Esserman & Plifka, P.C. are serving as legal counsel.

This is the third deal between TeraWulf and Fluidstack, all backed by Google. Fluidstack plans to lease 360MW of critical IT load from TeraWulf's Lake Mariner data center campus in New York, in two 10-year deals backed by Google. Google also took a 14 percent stake in TeraWulf across those two deals.

Fluidstack has also signed a separate 10-year deal with Cipher Mining for 244MW of capacity in Texas, with Google again backstopping $1.4bn of Fluidstack’s lease obligations. Again, Google took a stake in Cipher, this time around 5.4 percent.

TeraWulf is raising more than $3bn in high-yield bond (aka junk bonds) to fund the build-out of the Lake Mariner campus for Fluidstack.

Fluidstack was founded in 2017 at Oxford University. The company currently has more than 100,000 GPUs under management on its platform, with customers including Mistral AI, Character.AI, Poolside, and Black Forest Labs.