MARA Buys Texas Site for AI, Bitcoin Mining in Deal Worth Up to $600M
MARA (NASDAQ: MARA) has acquired a large powered land site in Matagorda County, Texas, in a deal that could reach $600 million if development milestones are met, marking another step in the bitcoin miner’s push to reposition itself as a large-scale energy and AI infrastructure developer.
MARA said Thursday that the site, located about 90 miles southwest of Houston, covers more than 1,200 acres and is expected o provide access to as much as 1 gigawatt of initial grid capacity by October 2027 and up to 2 gigawatts by April 2028. MARA plans to develop the land into a digital infrastructure campus for high-performance computing tenants and flexible compute operations, including bitcoin mining.
The transaction was announced as an agreement with HIF USA LLC, the U.S. arm of sustainable fuels developer HIF Global. The deal was closed on July 2 through MARA subsidiary Volt Texas LLC, which acquired the membership interests in MAT 1177 LLC, the project company holding land rights and a utility letter agreement tied to 2,000 megawatts of power capacity.
The purchase price was not structured as an upfront cash payment. Instead, MARA will make milestone payments tied to project development events, including regulatory approvals, the acquisition of land currently under contract, authorization for the site to receive power and the signing of a data center lease with a third-party tenant. If all milestones are achieved, the aggregate purchase price would be $600 million. MARA also says HIF will retain a minority ownership interest in the project once a data center lease is executed.
MARA noted that the site has already received interest from potential HPC tenants and will be developed through its previously announced partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures. Phased construction is expected to begin in 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.
The acquisition shows how large bitcoin miners are increasingly competing for powered land and grid interconnection rights as demand from AI and cloud-computing customers strains the supply of data center capacity. MARA, one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin mining companies, has been among the more active miners trying to turn its experience managing large power loads into a broader digital infrastructure platform.
In February, MARA announced a strategic partnership with Starwood Capital Group and Starwood Digital Ventures to convert and expand select MARA sites into AI-capable digital infrastructure. The companies said at the time that the platform was expected to deliver about 1 GW of near-term IT capacity, with a pathway to more than 2.5 GW.
The Matagorda deal follows MARA’s April agreement to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power, which includes a 505 MW gas-fired power plant in Hannibal, Ohio, and more than 1,600 acres for a planned digital infrastructure campus. That transaction, valued at about $1.5 billion including assumed debt, is expected to close in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approvals.
MARA said the Matagorda site, once fully energized and including the expected closing of Long Ridge, would more than double its potential power capacity to about 4.8 GW across its portfolio.
The transaction also allows HIF to monetize part of its Matagorda infrastructure while retaining exposure to the site’s future development. HIF said it has issued notice to proceed for construction of a switchyard to connect the site to the grid, while continuing to pursue advanced fuels projects at other sites it controls in Texas and internationally.
HIF’s Matagorda project had previously been positioned as a large-scale e-fuels development. The company’s website says the facility was designed to produce about 1.4 million tons of e-methanol annually when fully constructed.
