Bitdeer buys 200 acres in Texas for AI data center

Bitdeer has bought a 200-acre parcel in Milam County, Texas, for $100 million as the company expands beyond cryptocurrency mining and pushes further into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

The land, formerly part of an aluminum smelting plant owned by Alcoa Corporation, sits next to Bitdeer’s existing Rockdale data center. Bitdeer said the property will be used "to support the company’s strategy to develop AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure alongside its existing operations."

The Nasdaq-listed company said the purchase gives it more direct control over a site tied to its long-term plans in Texas. Across the newly acquired land and its adjacent Rockdale facility, Bitdeer said it has access to 563MW of interconnected grid capacity in Texas, with the potential to expand it to 742MW.

In remarks to investors, the company said: "The land acquisition strengthens Bitdeer's long-term operational control and allows the company to plan, finance and develop AI/HPC infrastructure at the sites.

"The company believes its Rockdale location is well positioned to receive further power allocations over the coming years, given its existing large-load interconnection and the established transmission and substation infrastructure serving the location."

Michael G. Potter, Bitdeer’s CFO, said: "Securing outright ownership of land in Milam County reflects the disciplined approach we’re taking to expanding powered land under our control.

"Rockdale is one of the best-connected locations in our portfolio, and we believe it is well positioned to receive additional power over the coming years. Owning this land gives us greater long-term certainty over our development plans, eliminates the renewal risk associated with a lease, and provides flexibility to maintain our existing Bitcoin mining operations while we develop the newly acquired property."

He added: "It’s a continuation of the progress we’ve been making across our platform to put Bitdeer in direct control of the sites that matter most to our growth."

Shift from crypto mining to AI infrastructure

Bitdeer Technologies Group is a cryptocurrency firm with 175,000 Bitcoin mining machines under management. It operates AI neocloud services through its subsidiary, Bitdeer AI.

The company currently has six sites in operation, including 13MW in Washington State, 37MW in Tennessee, 570MW in Ohio, and 175MW in Tydal, Norway. In February 2025, Bitdeer acquired a 101MW gas-fired power project in Canada in a $21.7 million deal tied to plans for a 99MW Bitcoin mining site. In April, it also acquired 40MW of liquid-cooled Bitcoin mining containers from Saiheat.

Bitdeer has previously said its Washington and Tennessee sites, which originally operated as cryptomining facilities, are being converted into AI data centers. Work to convert the Norwegian site into an AI cloud facility began in April. The company also lists plans for HPC sites in Molde, Norway, due to go live by the end of 2028. It said its global power pipeline now totals 3GW of installed and potential capacity.

Part of a larger former Alcoa site

The land Bitdeer purchased was once part of Alcoa Corp’s aluminum plant site, a 33,000-acre property where smelting ended in 2008 and the plant closed completely in 2017.

Since then, parts of the site have been sold to third parties. The source article said these would appear to include SoftBank, which reportedly bought 4,000 acres of Alcoa Corp land in June. It is not known if SoftBank intends to build a data center on the site, though its energy subsidiary SB Energy is building a data center elsewhere in Milam County that will be leased by OpenAI as part of its Stargate network.

The transaction also comes as Texas is operating under a pause on new data center developments after Governor Greg Abbott instructed the state’s utility provider to audit interconnection requests in its queue.

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