CIFR Stock Black Pearl Site

Black Pearl has crossed a meaningful threshold in Cipher Digital's transition from mining to HPC infrastructure: initial capacity has been delivered and rent has begun. The campus still contains construction work, so the correct description is a phased delivery in progress.

For the location and source history, open Black Pearl and Cipher's other sites in the tracker. The complete Cipher site guide places the project alongside the rest of the portfolio.

What Black Pearl is

Black Pearl is Cipher's campus in Wink, Texas. The AWS transaction covers 300 MW of gross campus capacity and 216 MW of critical IT load. Gross power includes the supporting systems around the compute equipment; the two figures describe different boundaries and must not be added together.

Cipher's Black Pearl financing presentation identifies Amazon Data Services as tenant and Amazon.com as guarantor. It describes a 15-year base lease, extension options and a mix of retrofitted existing premises and newly constructed space. This is contracted infrastructure provision, not evidence that Cipher operates an AWS-like GPU cloud of its own.

Delivery has begun

The August business update reported an amendment accelerating initial delivery at the tenant's request. Initial capacity arrived in August, and rent commenced. The previous article's expectation that the first rental payment remained ahead of the company is therefore no longer current.

The construction slides still showed mechanical and electrical fit-out in remaining Phase I halls, with foundations, steel and underground electrical work in Phase II. An early phase can generate revenue while the rest of a campus is being built.

The next meaningful evidence is the amount accepted at each milestone and the associated rental contribution. The first delivery should not be extrapolated into full utilization or full contracted revenue.

The contract and capital boundary

The original AWS announcement described approximately $5.5 billion of payments over the base term. That cumulative figure is not one year's revenue, profit or present equity value.

The financing presentation sets a $9.5 million per IT MW construction allowance and describes conditions around reimbursement above that allowance. That contractual mechanism should be read with its qualifications. It does not mean that every unexpected cost necessarily falls outside Cipher's responsibility.

For shareholders, delivery changes the question from whether a campus can win a lease to how much cash survives construction, financing and operating obligations. A headline contract value cannot answer that question by itself.

What the public evidence does not establish

This refresh removes unsupported specificity about the completed campus. We do not infer an achieved operating PUE, water-use intensity, certified redundancy tier, GPU utilization or a final full-campus acceptance date from a lease or an equipment procurement update.

The distinction is practical. Cooling capability in a design is not a measured efficiency result. An available utility connection is not proof that all halls are commissioned. Customer credit support improves the quality of a receivable but does not eliminate construction performance requirements.

The next checks

Watch the remaining delivery phases, disclosed revenue ramp, capex changes and any changes to the contractual remedies or reimbursement terms. Compare progress with Barber Lake, where the tenant and timing differ.

Black Pearl now provides evidence that Cipher can move from a signed commitment into initial rent. The investment question is whether that delivery can be completed and repeated across the portfolio. The Cipher company page collects the related studies and model coverage.

Historical calculations retained from the original study

The following limited examples are preserved from the original publication. Their assumptions and outputs have not been revised. They are not current operating measurements, a new Northwise forecast or a statement of current contracted prices. The factual discussion above uses the latest reviewed evidence.

The estimated 2025 mining revenue is retained as an original estimate, not a newly verified financial result. The allowance arithmetic is not a final construction-cost disclosure.

Construction began in Q1 2024. Phase I energized in Q2 2025, and mining operations began in June 2025. By July 2025, Cipher reported roughly 6.9 EH/s online at Black Pearl. By Q3 2025, the site was operating at 150 MW. Black Pearl generated real revenue during this period, with 2025 Black Pearl mining revenue estimated near $57.9M.

The lease includes a $9.5M capex allowance per IT MW. Across 216 MW of critical IT load, that points to an allowance of roughly $2.052B. Amazon reimburses construction costs above the allowance, subject to lease terms and conditions.

The $2.052B figure is a useful framing rather than a precise project cost. Some existing infrastructure is being repurposed, the reimbursement mechanics matter, and project debt proceeds and parent reimbursements do not equal a clean all-in build number. The directional signal is what matters: a $2B-scale capex envelope is consistent with a serious hyperscale conversion, not a light mining retrofit.