Bernstein raises Riot Platforms price target to $35 as Bitcoin miner’s AI pivot gains traction

Riot Platforms just became the latest Bitcoin miner to convince Wall Street it’s more than a Bitcoin miner. Bernstein raised its price target on RIOT stock to $35, and the market’s reaction was swift: shares jumped more than 27% in pre-market trading.

The AI data center play

Riot’s pivot isn’t theoretical. The company has secured a high-performance computing lease with AMD at its Rockdale, Texas facility, a deal valued at approximately $311 million over ten years. The agreement starts with an initial 25 MW capacity, with an option to scale up to 200 MW.

Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani, who carries an Outperform/Buy rating on the stock, had previously raised the price target from $25 to $30. The latest move to $35 signals that Chhugani sees accelerating momentum in Riot’s infrastructure transformation, not just a one-off contract win.

At the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in late May, Riot’s leadership showcased its AI-focused data center expansion plans and reported increasing recurring revenue from data center operations.

Why Bitcoin miners are becoming AI landlords

Riot isn’t operating in a vacuum. Core Scientific blazed the trail, signing a massive deal with CoreWeave that effectively transformed its market perception overnight. Bitcoin miners already have the land, the substations, the cooling infrastructure, and the grid interconnection agreements. The only thing that changes is what sits inside the facility: instead of ASIC mining rigs, you rack GPU servers.

For Riot specifically, the Texas location adds another advantage. The state’s deregulated energy market and ERCOT grid participation allow the company to earn revenue by curtailing power usage during peak demand periods.

What the numbers say

Average analyst price targets for RIOT currently range from $27 to $34, with the most bullish individual forecasts climbing as high as $42. Bernstein’s new $35 target sits near the upper end of that consensus range.

The stock’s 27% pre-market surge is dramatic, though not unprecedented for Riot. The company’s shares have shown notable volatility tied to both Bitcoin price movements and AI infrastructure developments, with prior analyst updates triggering pre-market swings exceeding 25%.

The AMD lease is real and generating revenue, but the gap between 25 MW today and 200 MW at full buildout represents years of capital expenditure and construction risk.

The bigger picture for crypto-native companies

A company generating $311 million in contracted AI hosting revenue over a decade looks fundamentally different on a discounted cash flow model than one relying solely on block rewards that halve every four years. Bernstein’s price target increase reflects that math.