Anthropic's 20-year lease prices TeraWulf's Kentucky capacity at $2.4m per megawatt a year

Divide the Anthropic contract by its own terms and the price per megawatt falls out: $19bn of projected revenue over 20 years is $950m a year, spread across 401 megawatts of critical IT capacity in Kentucky, or about $2.4m per megawatt annually ^[4][1]. Cryptobriefing frames the same number as nearly $1bn a year from a single tenant ^[5]. TeraWulf's HPC line billed $31.9m in the second quarter, an annual rate of $127.6m, which is roughly 13% of what that one lease pays once the megawatts are energised ^[3][2].

The mix change is sharper than the 71% headline suggests. Work backwards from the 52% sequential increase and first-quarter HPC revenue was about $21.0m, leaving $13.0m of non-HPC revenue in the first quarter against $12.9m in the second ^[2][3][3]. Total revenue rose $10.8m ^[6]. All of the increase came from leasing, and the mining and other line was flat.

Rothschild Redburn's caution is about schedule. The note cites construction timelines that can slip and tight labour markets for specialised data centre workers ^[11], and the gap it is pricing is 737 megawatts: 839 contracted against the 102 operational at Lake Mariner in New York ^[6][8][5]. At the company's own target of 250 to 500 megawatts of additions a year, that is one and a half to three years of building ^[7][5]. Cryptobriefing reports that the Anthropic contract buffers demand risk and that supply-side execution is where the thesis gets tested over the next 12 to 24 months ^[12].

BofA and Bernstein hold more favourable ratings, citing financing progress and the structural pull of hyperscale demand for AI compute ^[10]. TeraWulf is also monetising its Abernathy joint venture interest for about $530m ^[9]. The report does not include a share count, so the $15 target cannot be checked against the contracted book from these figures alone.

In my view the shares are priced on energised megawatts, not on the $19bn headline, because rent on a signed 20-year lease is fixed and a late start moves roughly $950m of annual revenue to the right without changing it ^[4][1]. The counter-case is respectable: if financing is largely done and $530m arrives from Abernathy ^[9][10], slippage costs interest and holding expense while the tenant stays contracted for two decades ^[4]. Paul Prager, the chairman and chief executive, and Nazar Khan, the chief technology officer, have run the transition so far ^[13]. What would prove the cautious read wrong is energised capacity climbing toward that 250 to 500 megawatt annual pace in quarterly disclosure ^[7]; what would confirm it is Lake Mariner sitting near 102 megawatts while Kentucky dates move ^[8].