Miner-to-HPC conversion research

How much of the headline MW is real?

Loadline derates public miner-to-AI data center claims for credit and infrastructure investors. The unit of analysis is not announced power. It is usable, evidenced critical IT capacity.

Read Derate #001 $5K public-data memo

Flagship report

Derate #001 is public.

Riot Rockdale / As of June 2026

700 MW gross power is not 700 MW of critical IT load.

Riot's Rockdale site has real power, land control, water, fiber disclosures, and AMD as an anchor tenant. The analytical question is narrower: what part of the headline campus has crossed into tenant-proven AI/HPC capacity?

Gross interconnect / developed power 700 MW
Illustrative critical-IT ceiling ~520-580 MW
AMD potential path Up to 200 MW
Contracted critical IT load 50 MW
Proved

Site control

Riot acquired the 200-acre Rockdale land parcel for $96 million, replacing ground-lease uncertainty.

Proved

Tenant proof

AMD contracted 25 MW of critical IT load and later exercised 25 MW more, bringing contracted load to 50 MW.

Watch

First slice economics

The initial retrofit cost was $89.8 million, or about $3.6 million per critical IT MW.

Unproved

Full-campus bridge

The remaining campus needs tenant, density, cooling, redundancy, timeline, and operations evidence.

Buyer questions this answers

  • What MW is contracted critical IT load versus announced site power?
  • What conversion proof exists in filings, leases, capex, and delivery milestones?
  • Which claims require engineering diligence before a lender should rely on them?
  • What has to be true for the remaining headline MW to become AI data center capacity?

The public report

Derate #001 shows the source-backed fields, amended AMD option stack, gross-to-critical-IT math, and the capex comparison that makes the first-slice retrofit warning visible.

Read the report

Cross-miner comp

The first slice is the cheap slice.

Riot Rockdale initial retrofit $3.6M/MW

25 MW initial AMD deployment, using existing Rockdale infrastructure.

Cipher Barber Lake project cost $9-11M/MW

168 MW Fluidstack critical IT load supported by 244 MW gross capacity.

Finding

  • Do not extrapolate: Riot's first 25 MW retrofit cost should not be applied across the remaining campus.
  • Scope matters: shell reuse, tenant fit-out, density target, cooling design, and who pays for equipment can move $/MW by multiples.
  • Alpha is normalization: filings give fragments; the research product turns them into comparable units.

Methodology

A public-data derate, not an engineering opinion.

01

Normalize the units.

Separate gross site power, estimated critical IT ceiling, leased capacity, contracted capacity, and delivered tenant capacity.

02

Score the proof.

Use filings, company releases, lease terms, capex disclosures, site pages, utility clues, and third-party reporting.

03

Track slippage.

Compare announced milestones against delivery, and credit operators when they hit dated capacity commitments.

First product

A $5K public-data memo before the IE report.

$5K Per site
Public source pack 1
MW waterfall 2
Capex comps 3
Open diligence list 4

Built for credit and infrastructure investors

  • Use it to triage: kill weak conversion deals before spending on formal diligence.
  • Use it to focus: send the Independent Engineer the exact claims that need proof.
  • Use it to compare: normalize miner pipelines that use different MW language.
  • Not included: PE-stamped engineering, legal advice, appraisal, rating, or investment recommendation.

Byline

Research by Sean Bangalore.

GPU serving lens

I build production ML serving systems and spend my time around inference cost, reliability, and capacity planning.

Why this exists

AI infrastructure buyers do not consume headline megawatts. They consume usable critical IT capacity with a credible operating path.

What I am not claiming

Loadline is research. It is not a rating agency, an Independent Engineer, an appraisal firm, or investment advice.

Sources for Derate #001

Every number should point back to a source.

Riot Rockdale site page Riot AMD lease and land acquisition release Riot Q1 2026 10-Q Riot Q1 2026 strategic highlights Cipher Barber Lake transaction release

Pilot offer

Send one miner conversion claim. Get the derate.

$5,000 for a public-data memo that separates headline MW from evidenced AI/HPC capacity and identifies the diligence questions that matter before capital gets serious.

Request a $5K memo

Loadline publishes research based on public information believed to be reliable. It does not provide engineering, legal, accounting, appraisal, rating, securities, or investment advice.