Google agrees to cover Anthropic's rent on a Kentucky data-centre lease if it defaults

TeraWulf, which owns the Hawesville campus, disclosed on 4 November that Google had agreed to backstop certain obligations of Anthropic under leases at TeraWulf’s campus in Hawesville, Kentucky. The filing describes three credit-support agreements dated 4 November, and Anthropic as the tenant under a 20-year lease for high-performance computing covering about 401MW of critical IT load.

Under the agreements, if Anthropic defaults on rent or becomes insolvent, the landlord can give notice and Google may pay the rent due and assume the lease or, in certain circumstances, pay a termination fee. Paying the fee entitles Google to acquire an equity interest in the landlord. The backstop takes effect at the start of the final data hall under the relevant lease, and ends under conditions that include Anthropic or a guaranteeing affiliate holding certain investment-grade credit ratings for at least three months. The 8-K gives no dollar figures for the termination fee.

The scale came from TeraWulf’s third-quarter investor presentation on 6 November, which gave roughly $19bn of contracted revenue for the campus, a 20-year initial term with two five-year extensions, Fluor as construction contractor, and phased delivery from late 2027 into the second quarter of 2028. It cited Alphabet’s Aa2 and AA+ credit ratings alongside the backstop.

The termination condition implies Anthropic does not currently hold investment-grade ratings, though the filing does not say so. The filings do not say how Anthropic and Google reached the arrangement or whether it relates to their other compute agreements. Anthropic had filed publicly for an IPO on 26 October.

Separately, on the same day, Hut 8 reported a second 352MW lease at its Beacon Point site, with the unnamed tenant of its first phase, adding about $9.8bn of expected base-term contract value and lifting the expected total across its AI data-centre portfolio to about $26.6bn. In August, Riot Platforms had signed a lease reported to be with Anthropic.