Shares of MARA Holdings (MARA) surged on Thursday after the company announced the acquisition of a 1,200-acre powered land site in Matagorda County, Texas, from HIF USA, accelerating its strategic pivot into AI and data center infrastructure. The transaction, which includes post-closing milestone payments of up to $600 million, grants MARA access to a massive 2 gigawatt (GW) power capacity pipeline.
According to the terms, the site is projected to deliver an initial 1 GW of grid capacity by October 2027, scaling to the full 2 GW by April 2028. MARA intends to develop the property alongside its partner Starwood Digital Ventures into a multi-tenant digital infrastructure campus optimized for High-Performance Computing (HPC) and AI workloads, while also retaining the ability to mine Bitcoin. The flexible compute model allows dynamic switching between AI training and cryptocurrency mining, insulating the company from downturns in the crypto cycle.
HIF USA, the synthetic-fuels developer that previously eyed the land for its own projects, will retain a minority stake once a compute tenant signs a lease and will continue its other fuel initiatives elsewhere. MARA Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel emphasized the strategic value of securing reliable, scalable power in an era of surging digital infrastructure demand.
The Matagorda deal, combined with MARA’s pending $1.5 billion acquisition of the Long Ridge Energy & Power plant in Ohio, pushes the company’s total potential portfolio capacity to approximately 4.8 GW—a scale rivaling regional utilities. Markets reacted swiftly: MARA stock jumped over 15% on the day to around $13.87, extending its year-to-date gain in 2026 to more than 54%. The move highlights a broader trend of Bitcoin miners transforming into infrastructure developers to capture the premium that AI companies are willing to pay for ready-to-use power.
