AMD locked in more than $14 billion of 15-year data center leases with Core Scientific, securing power for the Helios AI racks it begins shipping this year.
Key Points:
- Core Scientific will deliver roughly 530 megawatts across five U.S. campuses under 15-year terms
- AMD holds reservation rights on nearly 2 gigawatts more, taking the potential footprint to 2.5 gigawatts
- Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Oracle and Anthropic have all committed to deploy Helios racks
AMD Core Scientific Lease Terms
Core Scientific disclosed the agreements on Jul. 28 alongside second-quarter results that showed colocation revenue of $136.7 million, up 76% from the prior quarter.
AMD leases roughly 377 megawatts directly at Pecos and Hunt County in Texas and at Muskogee, Oklahoma. Another 152 megawatts at Auburn, Alabama, and Dalton, Georgia will serve an unnamed cloud tenant, and AMD provides credit support across the full 15-year term.
The chipmaker also received a warrant for up to 30 million Core Scientific shares priced at $23.47, with about 6.5 million vesting once the first leases closed. Power reaches Pecos in the first half of 2027, the rest follows through 2028, and AMD holds exclusive rights to reserve 1,925 megawatts more through late that year.
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Why Helios Challenges Nvidia
Adam Sullivan, chief executive of Core Scientific, called the arrangement a "one-of-one type partnership" on the company's earnings call. Analysts at Needham kept a buy rating and a $29 price target, describing the leases as an attractive expansion opportunity. The agreements roughly double the operator's contracted AI capacity to about 1.1 gigawatts and push its booked revenue past $24 billion.
That capacity has one job.
AMD unveiled Helios in July, packing 72 Instinct MI455X accelerators, sixth-generation EPYC processors and 31 terabytes of HBM4 memory into a rack built on open Ethernet standards.
Chief Executive Lisa Su has pitched the system as an inference alternative that carries more memory capacity than rival designs.
Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Oracle and Anthropic have all joined the buyer list, and shipments begin in the second half of this year.
AMD AI Deal Run Since Spring
Nvidia still dwarfs the challenger, since its data center unit posted $75.2 billion in the quarter that ended in April, up 92% from a year earlier. AMD reported $5.8 billion for its March quarter, a 57% jump, and guided to about $11.2 billion in total sales for the period it reports on Aug. 4.
The Core Scientific lease caps months of accumulating commitments stretching back to spring. OpenAI agreed to a six-gigawatt multigenerational supply deal, Meta signed a six-gigawatt custom GPU arrangement, and Oracle plans to deploy 50,000 MI450 accelerators starting this quarter.
Anthropic committed on Jul. 22 to as much as two gigawatts of the same parts, and AMD agreed to invest up to $5 billion in the lab.
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