If Anthropic Breaches Contract, Google May Acquire Equity Stake in TeraWulf Data Center Project

on November 5, according to CoinDesk, Google is backing the $19 billion data center lease between Anthropic and bitcoin miner TeraWulf. Should Anthropic fail to make rental payments or file for bankruptcy, Google has the option to take over the lease or, under certain conditions, pay a termination fee to acquire partial equity in Raylan Data, a TeraWulf subsidiary that operates the project.

The lease spans 20 years and covers 401 megawatts of computing capacity at TeraWulf's Kentucky data center. The percentage of equity Google obtains will be tied to the ratio of the termination fee to the project's total development and construction costs, with the stake held in the project subsidiary rather than the publicly listed parent company, TeraWulf. Capacity delivery for the project is expected to commence in late 2027 and continue through the second quarter of 2028.