On August 14, 2025, Bitcoin miner TeraWulf announced a $3.7 billion lease of computing resources to the artificial intelligence cloud platform Fluidstack. Additionally, Google will provide an $1.8 billion guarantee for Fluidstack's lease obligations and will receive warrants for approximately 8% of TeraWulf's equity.

On August 18, Fluidstack exercised its option. TeraWulf will expand the Lake Mariner data center in western New York State, adding a 160-megawatt load. Google will provide an incremental $1.4 billion guarantee to support project-related debt financing. This increases Google's guarantee support to $3.2 billion and raises the warrants to 14%.

Boosted by the positive news, TeraWulf's stock price showed an upward trend after August 14, reaching a high of $10.52 on August 18. This represents an increase of $5.22 from the pre-announcement low of $5.30 on August 13, a gain of 98.49%. It subsequently experienced a slight decline, reporting at $8.78 at the time of writing, still maintaining a relatively high level.

I. Detailed Overview of the TeraWulf-Google Collaboration Plan

Last Thursday, at a shareholder meeting, TeraWulf announced that it had signed a 10-year colocation lease agreement with AI infrastructure provider Fluidstack, with total contract revenue reaching $3.7 billion. This figure could more than double if the agreement is renewed for another five years.

Google's involvement includes supporting Fluidstack's $1.8 billion lease obligation to TeraWulf and providing debt financing. In return, Google received warrants for approximately 41 million shares of TeraWulf stock, representing about 8% of the company.

This week, Google continued to increase its stake in TeraWulf. TeraWulf Chief Strategy Officer Kerri Langlais revealed: Google's support amount in the agreement has now increased to $3.2 billion, in exchange for warrants to purchase over 73 million shares of TeraWulf, representing 14% of the company. Google's new equity stake makes it the largest shareholder of TeraWulf, which "serves as a strong endorsement from one of the world's leading technology companies" and highlights "the strength of our zero-carbon infrastructure and the scale of the future opportunity."

This collaboration will provide over 200 megawatts of critical IT load (total capacity approximately 250 MW) for TeraWulf's Lake Mariner data center in western New York, a facility built for liquid-cooled AI workloads. TeraWulf's Lake Mariner campus is equipped with dual 345 kV transmission lines, a closed-loop water cooling system, and low-latency fiber optic connectivity, designed to be a top-tier hyperscale data center meeting demanding AI workloads. The first phase of deployment at the campus will provide 40 MW of capacity, expected to be operational in the first half of 2026, with full completion anticipated by the end of the year.

TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager called this a "defining moment" for TeraWulf, while CTO Nazar Khan emphasized the facility's scalability and readiness.

Fluidstack President César Maklary highlighted the shared commitment to fast, scalable AI infrastructure.

II. Advancing into the HPC Hosting Business

TeraWulf was established in 2021 as a Bitcoin mining company focused on environmentally sustainable operations.

According to the Q2 2025 performance report released by TeraWulf on August 8: Q2 2025 revenue was $47.6 million, compared to $35.6 million in Q2 2024; BTC mining capacity increased 45.5% year-over-year to 12.8 EH/s. In Q2 2025, the company self-mined 485 Bitcoin at Lake Mariner, compared to 699 Bitcoin in Q2 2024. The decrease in mining output was primarily due to two main reasons: the halving in April 2024 and the strategic divestiture of the Nautilus Cryptomine facility in October 2024. The power cost per Bitcoin in Q2 2025 was $45,555, compared to $22,954 in Q2 2024, reflecting the halving, increased network difficulty, and short-term electricity price fluctuations.

Since the Bitcoin halving, miners have been seeking to diversify revenue streams by shifting energy capacity towards artificial intelligence and high-power computing (HPC) hosting services. TeraWulf also faces issues common to Bitcoin mining companies, and whether to make changes is a question TeraWulf must consider.

Asset management firm VanEck estimated in an August 2024 report: If listed Bitcoin mining companies shift 20% of their energy capacity to AI and high-performance computing (HPC) by 2027, they could add an additional $13.9 billion in annual profit within 13 years.

"In the short term, mining can generate cash flow and provide valuable resources to the grid, as its flexible load can be quickly adjusted to support stability and reliability." However, in the medium to long term, TeraWulf believes that converting the business to AI and high-performance computing workloads "holds greater value," and the long-term contracted revenue with blue-chip partners like Fluidstack and Google "will drive growth and value creation."

TeraWulf CFO Patrick Fleury pointed out: "We will begin recognizing revenue from the high-performance computing (HPC) hosting business in the third quarter of 2025, marking a critical inflection point in our financials. With the implementation of our previously announced financing strategy and a disciplined capital allocation approach, we are confident in achieving our expansion responsibly while creating meaningful value for shareholders."

TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager stated: "TeraWulf continues to execute its strategy of developing scalable, sustainable digital infrastructure to support high-performance computing (HPC) hosting and proprietary Bitcoin mining." "In the second quarter, we made significant progress in delivering the 72.5 MW of HPC capacity under the Core42 contract. The company delivered and began monetizing the WULF Den data center in July, expects to deliver and generate revenue from the CB-1 data center this month, and the CB-2 data center in the fourth quarter, consistent with previous expectations. Concurrently, we are in advanced discussions regarding expanding HPC hosting deployment at Lake Mariner and are actively seeking additional data center sites to support our long-term growth plans."

III. Why Did Google Invest in TeraWulf?

1. Profit Potential

As mentioned earlier, TeraWulf has signed a 10-year colocation lease agreement with AI infrastructure provider Fluidstack, with total contract revenue reaching $3.7 billion. This figure could more than double if renewed for another five years. The agreement is structured as a modified gross lease with annual escalations, and the expected net operating margin at the site level is 85%, approximately $315 million per year. The total project cost is estimated at $8 to $10 million per megawatt.

The rise in TeraWulf's stock price also demonstrates market recognition of the value of the collaboration between TeraWulf and Google – following Google's investment announcement, TeraWulf's stock price surged nearly 100% in the short term. As the Lake Mariner data center becomes operational in 2026 and the HPC hosting business scales up, the growth in company revenue and profit will further drive equity value, from which Google, as the largest shareholder, can directly benefit.

2. Boosting Google's AI Race

Google has made outstanding progress in the AI race, with achievements such as the Gemini series of models. Gemini 2.5 Pro has swept multiple categories like code, math, and science on the LMArena leaderboard. The development of AI relies on HPC. As the provider of computing power, HPC offers core support for the development of AI and big data, acting as the "engine" for AI development. During the training phase, large AI models need to process billions or even trillions of parameters, which cannot be accomplished by ordinary servers alone. HPC, through clustered architecture and parallel computing technologies, can significantly shorten model training cycles. During the inference phase, real-time AI applications require low-latency responses; HPC's high-speed interconnection technologies and edge computing node deployments ensure AI models complete inference decisions within milliseconds.

In an interview with CNBC, TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager noted: "The collaboration with Google is a defining moment for TeraWulf. We are uniting world-class capital and computing partners to build the next generation of AI infrastructure, powered by among the lowest cost, nearly zero-carbon energy in the industry. The Lake Mariner site is truly unique. It features dual 345 kV power transmission lines, a closed-loop water cooling system, and ultra-low latency fiber optic networks. These conditions are tailor-made for liquid-cooled, high-density AI computing."

Currently, TeraWulf is transitioning from Bitcoin mining to HPC hosting, planning to deliver multiple data center capacities. TeraWulf will aid Google's AI race in the future.

IV. Summary

Google's deep involvement with TeraWulf is a win-win collaboration. With Google's capital and reputation, TeraWulf achieves a short-term stock price increase and, in the medium to long term, can expand from solely mining into HPC hosting services and AI infrastructure construction, finding new profit points. Google, through its investment in TeraWulf, gains access to more computing resources to meet its needs for large model training, cloud services, and other computing demands, while also benefiting from equity appreciation returns from TeraWulf's profitability.

As competition in the AI arena heats up, TeraWulf's development path provides a transformation model for more crypto mining companies – riding the wave with tech giants, entering a golden赛道 (golden track), using the original business as a foundational support while actively expanding into high-value-added businesses, becoming a bridge facilitating synergistic development between the traditional tech industry and the crypto industry.