Welcome back to the Blockspace Podcast presented by CleanSpark.
Earlier this month, TerraWolf announced a $19 billion, 20-year deal with Anthropic in what has become the most lucrative and foundational AI contract for the company to date.
But shortly after, the state of New York announced a moratorium on data center build-outs in the country, and TerraWolf currently has two sites under construction in New York.
Now, one of these sites, Lake Mariner, is already permitted, so it won't be affected by the ban. But the Lake Cayuga site, or Lake Hawkeye site as it's sometimes called, is still in the construction phase.
That being said, CEO Paul Prager said that it will not be affected by the moratorium.
So to make sense of all this news, and to also get some updates on the Anthropic deal, for today's bonus episode we welcome Nazair Khan, co-founder, COO, and CTO of TerraWolf, to tackle all of these topics.
Hope you enjoy. Let's get the one and only Naz, not Lil Nas X, Nazair Khan up here to talk about the latest with TerraWolf. A lot to unpack today. Nazair, welcome to the show, my man. Thank you. Thank you.
Naz is all you need. No, no extra initials or letters. [laughs] Just Naz. I'm here. Well, Naz, appreciate you joining. Welcome back. Lot to unpack today. We-- obviously, there's the Anthropic deal.
Uh, we also wanna touch on Abernathy and, and s- and, um, TerraWolf's decision to sell their stake in that. And of course, we also have to talk about the data center moratorium in New York.
So I think that's a good place to start. Um, can you just briefly address how this data center moratorium will impact TerraWolf? I understand that in terms of Lake Mariner, Lake Mariner's in the clear.
It's been cleared for a while, so it will not impact that site specifically. But I'm curious about w- how it might impact the Lake Hawkeye/Lake Cayuga site.
Um, C- your CEO, Paul Prager, tweeted yesterday that, quote, "These decisions will not affect Cayuga/Lake Hawkeye's schedule."
And I'm curious, is that specifically because, um, y- y'all expect the moratorium to lapse by the time that construction gets underway? How exactly will it cause any problems or not for that site? Sure.
Fir- first, uh, as you said, um, with all of the contracts we've signed to date, you know, with Core42 and Fluid Stack and Google, all of those, uh, buildings are fully permitted. They're in construction.
They're in finance, and so there's no impact whatsoever on any of, of that capacity.
In terms of the expansion of Lake Mariner, which is an incremental 250 megawatts, uh, as well as the Lake Hawkeye site, you know, we've always targeted kind of power delivery in the, you know, '29 timeframe.
And so given that timeline, you know, a 12-month moratorium or whatever it ends up being, we don't think overall impacts the schedule for the delivery of data center capacity at that site.
So Paul's tweet yesterday was really in line with just kind of how we've thought about the overall timeline, uh, for those sites as well.
You know, taking a step back, I think it's important to just recognize the guidance that we've been given-- giving the market is, is that we're gonna sign up 250 to 500 megawatts of critical IT load per year.
We did that last year between the Core42, uh, announcements and the Fluid Stack and Google.
We just signed, as you mentioned earlier, a 401-megawatt deal with Anthropic, which is again squarely in the middle of that range. Uh, we've got our site in Eastern Kentucky, the Muskie site coming up.
That's 500 megawatts of gross power. That's available in the third quarter of 2028. In '29, we've got Morgantown, which is the site that we have in Maryland. We've got the expansion of Lake Mariner. We've got Cayuga.
So we have a couple different ways to kinda get to that, you know, 250 to 500 megawatts in '29. And then 2030, we have another 500 at, at Muskie lined up.
So with what we have in the portfolio today, that guidance that we've been giving you of 250 to 500, we feel extremely confident that we're gonna be able to follow through and deliver upon.
And that's why Paul, you know, tweeted yesterday and saying, "Hey, yes, there's a moratorium out there. Um, yes, you know, the state's gonna take a look at it," which we actually welcome.
We actually think it's not a bad thing for people to take a step back and say, "Okay, hey, how are we gonna actually meet the needs of this significant demand that is coming from data centers? What's the way to do that?"
We think we've been a model of how that should be done, whether it's transitioning old brownfield sites or how we've worked with union labor at our sites.
And so again, something for us that, um, we think will reflect well on the work we've done. And but again, overall, it doesn't really impact the overall timing and delivery of the capacity for, for those sites.
Appreciate that answer, and I think that this is something, uh, we, we have actually have an investment note that we'll be covering
towards the end of the show from Rosenblatt saying that the market really overreacted to the moratorium considering what TerraWolf already has in place and the timelines that y'all have discussed for the expansion at Mariner and at Lake Hawkeye.
I, I wanna turn to the- But I do think just before we leave that subject though, so I think the, the, the, the, the part of the overreaction I think is, is generally the market is trying to decipher, um, who is gonna have megawatts and when, right?
If you were just to add up everyone's stated megawatts,
you know, you ask us and you ask 40 other people, you add that all up, that's gonna be a really big number, and I would bet a dollar that the actual number of data centers that come up will be some number less than that.
And so everyone's trying to figure out how much less, right? So I think everyone will agree that it's gonna be less than what everyone's saying. It's how much less? Is it 5%? Is it 50%? Is it 95%?
And so any kind of news that signals, hey, there could be an impact on that, I think people kind of, you know, sell first and then kind of ask questions later.
And that's where I think for TerraWolf, you know, what we pride ourselves on is given that we come from a power background, our understanding of when we're-- the megawatts and the pipelines that we're telling you we think are very...
credible and real. And so whether it's what we've done at Hawesville, right, we acquired a site earlier this year, and within six months we were able to sign up Anthropic for a long-term lease on it.
Again, that was all happened within six months, right? That's a testament to the credibility and the proximity when we say power is available to what that, what that really means.
And so I think that's a broader question I think that the market is generally grappling with is, is how to make heads or tails of all of these numbers that add up to, you know, hundreds of gigawatts of total kind of, you know, potential data center supply, and where is it really gonna come from.
And again, from our perspective, that scrutiny is actually good because I do think that, again, that number is gonna be something less than what everyone says.
And going back to the 250 to 500 megawatts of critical IT load per year that, you know, I'd mentioned earlier, for us, you know, that's really a North Star in guiding how we manage our building the business.
And if we're able to properly implement and execute upon that, which again, we have a very high degree of confidence that we will be able to, you, you add that up over four years, I mean, you're talking about, you know, two gigs of potential capacity.
And so we've already, we're already, you know, 800 some odd megawatts, you know, towards that two gig number. And so we think, you know, we're well situated to be able to deliver on that, uh, overall target.
Nas, quick question before I move on to my next, uh, my next few, 'cause I've got a lot. Uh, do you have a hard stop at 3:15, or can we keep you for a little? Yeah, you can... Yeah, yeah. I'm good. I'm good. Okay. Cool.
Well, I'll, I'll, I'll keep rolling on this then, 'cause I, I have kind of two more questions with regards to the moratorium.
The first one I wanna address is, uh, Paul Prager said that y'all plan to have onsite generation at Cayuga.
I'm wondering if there are any worries about some more stringent regulation coming down the pipe because the s- the h- um, s- the s- New York State legislature's bill for the moratorium had this pretty hard line provision where it said all onsite generation must be renewable.
Are you expecting that to come out of this executive order in the working group?
Uh, do, do you, do you feel like that is maybe an unrealistic expectation that actually won't make it through in whatever the new regulations for data centers in New York will be following this moratorium period?
What's y'all's sense of where the ball is rolling there? So I think, you know, one is that, um, I'll, I'll answer it more broadly than kind of get into the specifics.
You know, generally, right, part of the reason we're in th- this situation is the overall market constructs that existed to be able to decide where new power should be needed, when it should be needed, and how it should come online really haven't worked as intended, right?
I mean, there was a big wave of deregulation in the power markets in the late '80s and '90s, and part of that was is the market was going to be able to decipher when new power was needed, what type of power it was, and where it was gonna come.
Fast-forward to today, I think most people would agree that that didn't really work, right?
So I think data centers in some sense have become, you know, part of the catalyst for looking and saying, "Okay, hey, how should this all work? You know, what is the right market construct? How should this work?
What are the objectives that the market is solving for?"
And so within the executive or the, the prior, you know, bill that you'd mentioned, you know, there was this, um, comment that it all should be kind of renewable power and renewable power only.
I think that is obviously a perspective and a view on, hey, this is how we think we should meet the needs for any incremental power that's coming.
If you, if you rewind back a couple years, right, the state of New York had a target that by 2050 they would be entirely, uh, reliant upon zero carbon generation as a source of, of power.
And so when you have nuclear, that's kind of a baseline zero carbon renewable f- uh, resource. When you have wind and solar, you know, these are in- intermittent resources that are non-dispatchable.
So again, that's one approach on, hey, how are we gonna solve this? Does that necessarily mean it's gonna be the final answer? I don't think so, right.
I think, you know, there's probably a, a number of iterations that we have to go through to come to what that l- that looks like.
And I think Paul's comment really was that the, the need for incremental power to kind of feed data centers is not just for data centers. Right?
I mean, if you look at the overall electrification of the grid as well, uh, that more and more things are being kind of run on electricity rather than combustible fuel.
And so there's another driver for kind of overall demand, and within that, I think Paul is making the point that, hey, if there is a way that these aggregated demand, um, loads can also speak to some of the power that they're gonna need, that may be a more efficient way, right?
So if you think about location, right, if you have the load there and the gen there, that may be a more efficient way.
You don't have to build as much transmission to be able to move the power from one place to the next where it's being used.
To the extent that it's a high, um, demand site where there's, you know, quite a bit of power being used, it could actually be a resource back to the grid because it now has both generation it can put onto the grid, it has a load that could maybe move around and be able to match some of the changes in the need from the grid.
And so I think in the long run, we do see that the ability to add incremental power generation
paired with these loads could be a, a structure that's beneficial to the overall market and could be a part of the solution in addressing, hey, how is this grid supposed to work, and how should we kind of transition from where we are right now, where most people agree is that we're not where we need to be, to get to a place where we do want to be?
And so I think, again, data centers in that sense can be a real catalyst for the investment that's been talked about for the grid, uh, for a number of years here and kind of be a pathway to find a solution that is at kind of a better place than we are today.
So to, to bookend this, Nas, I'd like to unfortunately pull up a Truth Social post. I, I don't, I don't go on Truth Social very much. [laughs] But, you know- It can only be one person.
This is coming from- Yeah, I was gonna say, it's our fearless leader...
yeah, this is coming from President Trump, and I'm not gonna read the full diatribe here, but he says, "One of the biggest driving forces in the future for jobs are data centers.
They are big, strong, bold- And you gotta love that. "And money machines for the state in which they are built.
Governor Katie- Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has determined that all data centers are being built or to be built in the New York State, has terminated all data centers are being built or to be built in the New York State," which is not actually what's happening.
But he basically says, "New York should change this policy immediately. Um, they must not be allowed to cause us to lose data centers, AI, and all of the incredible new technology to China or other countries."
I- I'm curious if this data center moratorium does change how TerraWolf looks at New York for expansion opportunities in the future. W- Will this lead to- Yeah, well, while we're talking about kind of data points, right?
I mean, uh, Governor Hochul was also on a podcast, uh, earlier today talking about the moratorium and how, what she thinks about it, right?
And I think she was pretty clear on that in saying that it wasn't really a ban, but more of a pause, and she wanted to give the various jurisdictions that these data centers are coming into the proper tools to work with those companies to be able to, uh, get those data centers online.
And so, uh, if we take kind of her words, uh, at, at face value, I think, you know, the way she's thinking about it, right, is, is that this is kind of a, a, an approach to be able to kind of put some methodology and structure to this large scale demand that's coming, and give those jurisdictions that may not have all of the tools, the proper tools to be able to engage and work with these various companies.
And so, um, that's again, on the face of it, not a, a, a bad place, right? If you think about it, this is massive investments coming into these locales.
You know, we're spending close to $4 billion at our site in Lake Mariner.
And so how that works, how that impacts property tax base, how it works for local employment, how we're working with the unions, I mean, all of those are real and valid questions that we should be dealing with, and we've had a pretty open and transparent policy of engaging with all of the various local stakeholders and telling them what we're up to, how we're going about it.
And you know, what I like to tell folks is that, you know, we can't... The expectation shouldn't be that you're always gonna agree on 100% of the things. Like, I can't agree with 100% of the things with my wife, right?
So there's no way that I'm gonna agree with 100% of the things with anybody if I can't do it with my wife. And again, that doesn't mean that that's a bad thing.
That just means that, you know, there are going to be differences of opinions.
And so it's not that we need to agree on 100%, it needs to be that there is a proper level of transparency of what's happening, what we're trying to get done, what the concerns are, and how we deal with it.
And so I think, again, if the intent of Governor Hochul's, uh, moratorium really is, is to kind of provide that playing field, I think, you know, it could be helpful and it could be particularly helpful for, for folks like us who've already been doing that and have been engaging in that.
And we think, you know, we have a solution that various, you know, jurisdictions will like.
And so we think, you know, if you go up to Lake Mariner and Barker County, that, you know, there'll be a number of folks there that will tell you, um, they've enjoyed kind of the work that we've done and have been grateful for kind of the, what we have brought, uh, to that part of the state.
So, so again, long way of saying, um, you know, if that's the approach, you know, we think, again, it could be beneficial and we think in the long run it will further kind of highlight the value of what we do and the sites that we have.
And you know, we're, again, always more than open to have a discussion with folks and walk them through what it is we're doing and how we're going about it.
I only, I only got one question I'm gonna interject here as we switch gears. Um, you guys got the Anthropic deal. Uh, that's pretty big. Cloud's my preferred vibe coding platform. That's like my window into it.
[laughs] How did you win the bid for this? I, I, I... You know, what's, what's the secret here? They're a pretty pr- uh, premier, uh, company to have on the other end of the deal.
I'd love to- Yeah, especially considering the site, like y'all said, you announced it and within six months you had Anthropic signed, so seems like breakneck pace. Yeah. The whole industry's at breakneck pace, right?
And so even before we had signed the agreement to purchase that, that site, you know, we were already in discussions with a number of different counterparties, uh, around capacity there.
Um, I think, you know, what we have found in the Anthropic team is a very entrepreneurial group that's looking to establish, you know, one of the premier companies in the world.
And so aligning ourselves with a partner and customer like that, um, is extremely compelling and exciting. And if you look at what we've been able to do with them, right?
I mean, we've been working with the Anthropic team, you know, going back to last summer. Um, you know, the end user for capacity at the site in Lake Mariner is Anthropic as well. You know, we have, uh,
a, a lease agreement with Fluid Stack who kind of then subleases that capacity to Anthropic.
And so we've gotten, we've had the pleasure and the good fortune of working closely with the Anthropic team for over a year now, and understanding, you know, what their needs are, where they're looking to g- grow, uh, and also just kind of how they work.
And so fortunately, you know, we think, you know, we found a good partner with them.
And so when we had the Hawesville site, you know, they were one of the, the, you know, the first, you know, calls that we had made in saying, "Hey, you know, we've got this site coming and this would be a, a good way to expand."
And what's interesting with the Anthropic team, right, is, is that as they look to kind of build a business, you know, where Anthropic was a year ago was different where they are today, and likely will be very different from where they're gonna be a year from today.
And so we're working with them on kind of what that trajectory could look like of where they're gonna be, not just where they are. And so again, that was the case when we did something with them a year ago.
That's the case, you know, kind of within this lease as well.
And likely, you know, what we do, you know, hopefully what we do with them, you know, over the course of the next year or two will also kind of have that constant kind of forward-looking view of, you know, where, where, where the company's going and what does that need, what needs do they have, and how can we kind of support that?
And so what's interesting, you know, within this deal that we signed with Anthropic is, um, we did not have a direct investment grade counterparty at the time that we signed the lease.
So we got a number of questions from folks saying, "Hey, it says, you know, a investment-grade counterparty, you know, will come." And so
one view, right, you know, within Anthropic is, is that, you know, likely at some point here in the near future,
whether that's measured in months or a year or two, Anthropic may or likely will be investment grade themselves. Right?
Again, if you just kind of look at their growth in ARR, where they've been over the last, you know, just even over the past year, where they're looking to go. They're likely to go public here.
They will likely go public at a valuation that's over a trillion dollars. There's not that many companies in the world that have that kind of a valuation.
And so we were willing to kind of work with them on where they're going rather than kind of where they sit exactly today.
And so it's that kind of entrepreneurial view that we bring to the table, that we think we bring to the table, and likewise, you know, we found, you know, um, wholesale, you know, kind of wholeheartedly in the Anthropic team as well.
So it's been a wonderful relationship and we're, uh, you know, fortunate that they, uh, were, were willing to kind of, you know, work with us on that as well.
So Nas, on, on that note, and you kind of touched on it here, but if you could just underscore the point. So in the press release where y'all say that, [lip smacks]
um, the, the lease is backed by investment-grade credit. So can you just... Who's, who's credit is that exactly? So there's, yeah. So the two paths are that, um,
Anthropic themselves, you know, over time becomes investment grade. And again, I would say that will likely happen. The timing of that, you know, is, you know, kind of TBD.
Or, you know, whoever the hardware they're u- they're, they're using, you know, they could kind of step in, and whether they step in for the full 20 years or some period that's shorter than that, depending upon what Anthropic looks like could kind of be another path.
And so we're actively working with Anthropic on doing that. And as I said, we're looking at where they're going rather than kind of, you know, where they sit today or where they were yesterday.
And so, so that's the view that we took. Uh, again, early on folks said, "Hey, you know, that's a little bit different than we've done before."
And our response was, is what we did a year ago is what we thought the market needed and where the market was going kind of, you know, for the year ahead.
Um, if you look back, you know, we were the first to do that structure. Subsequent to that, we had a number of our peers, you know, follow up on that exact same structure.
And now, you know, we've kind of taken a look and said, "Hey, w- we don't ne- necessarily need to replicate exactly that." Do we need a highly rated credit counterparty underlying this lease? Absolutely.
But there's not kind of, you know, one specific way that that, that may come about. That could kind of come about with either of these two paths.
So o- on that, uh, kind of extending this thread further, Nas, and I know you're not TeraWulf CFO Patrick Flury, so I'm sorry for throwing this one to you, and you can duck it if you want.
But g- given that there is potentially the option to have investment-grade credit backing this project in, in the near term, is, is that some of the rationale as to why TeraWulf decided to, as Patrick Flury s-
bridge loans for part of the financing for this? Is that- Hang on. You dropped out... can we see that as a stopgap? Oh. You dropped out briefly. Could you restate that? Uh, yeah.
Um, my, my question is looking at the f- the, uh, potential for future investment-grade credit for this site, is that part of the rationale behind what Patrick Flury said recently on an interview that y'all are looking at le- leveraged loans, uh, in the, in the interim to secure capital for this site?
Can we view that as kind of a stopgap until you get to something like that? I'm just curious why going for something like a mix of leverage loans and secured notes rather than just, uh, notes outright.
So again, um, Patrick is the CFO- Yeah [laughs]... and Patrick is the best CFO kind of in the space, and so I will try to do my part to, uh, address that.
And again, I will probably not, um, capture everything that, that Patrick would say. But, but a couple things here.
So, so one is that, um, we are going to go after the capital markets that provide the most efficient source of financing.
When we did a-- went to the high-yield bond market, uh, last year, we were the first company to kind of go into that market to raise debt f- to, for construction for a data center, right?
And so Patrick, uh, and you know, we work, uh, very closely with the team at Morgan Stanley, spent a tremendous amount of time thinking through, "Hey, where is the most efficient market to be able to raise this debt, get us into the market, get great pricing, and allow us to really run hard at building this facility?"
And so that was not a foregone conclusion when, before we started that process, right?
The view that Patrick took, uh, it was, you know, a testament again to his ability to understand where the capital was coming from, what the capital was looking for, and what we can kind of feed into that.
So going forward, we're always gonna be thinking about different markets to be able to bring that capital in, and so whether that's leverage loan market, project finance market, high-yield market.
It could be, you know, a mix or any of the above, depending upon where the market is and what we need.
And so again, that's a testament to Patrick and his experience and expertise in being able to understand those markets and being able to bring us, you know, bring TeraWulf into the proper market to do that.
So I think Patrick's comment on that was more around just, "Hey, there are multiple ways that we can raise this capital, and we're always gonna look at all of them and ensure that we're getting kind of the best execution for the company."
Um, with respect to kind of when we actually go to the market to raise that debt, again, whether it's a leverage loan, whether it's a high yield, whether it's a project finance or anything, any other market that may, may, may be out there, we will at that point in time have a clear view on who the credit counterparties are, what the ratings are, and they will likely be investment grade or better.
Um, uh, and we will kind of, you know, finance it on the, on the back of that.
And so there is not an expectation that we're gonna have some sort of interim financing that we know we have in place for, you know, some short period of time that's then taken out at some subsequent time.
I think when we do go to the market, we'll have a total package- That total package may have some on-ramps and off-ramps for different investment-grade counterparties.
That could be the case, but we will have kind of a full package with investment-grade counterparties at the time that we go into the markets, because ultimately, to be able to get the best cost of capital for the construction, we're gonna need kind of that clarity and that certainty.
And so again, if I misstated anything, Patrick will likely text me here within the next couple of minutes, but [laughs] I'll let you know. Well, you can just blame me. To, to- Yeah...
you know, I, I put you on the hot seat with that one. I think you, you channeled your inner Fleury pretty well with that, though.
Nas, b- uh, to wrap up here, just, uh, one or two more questions, and I wanna turn our attention to the Abernathy JV sale. Wh- what is the rationale behind this?
Is this basically saying we need to free up resources for our real winning sites right now? I'm curious as to why TerraWolf decided to step away from that JV in Texas. Sure.
When we first signed that JV, you know, we have a great relationship with Fluid Stack. They've been great partners w- uh, with us. Um, we looked at that as a potential channel for further growth, right?
At the time we signed that deal, um, we had, uh, signed up Fluid Stack as a customer at the Lake Mariner site. Fluid Stack's been doing a number of things.
Uh, they've continued to build their platform, and so we looked at it as a potential channel for growth and kind of entering into these JVs, and whether it was with Fluid Stack or potentially with other counterparties, it was another way for us to grow the platform.
Um, as we got into it, you know, there's a lot that goes into putting these projects together. Um, and so for that site in particular, you know, we were at 84 megawatts of net critical IT capacity.
And so it's one of those things where whether you're doing 84 megawatts or you're doing 484 megawatts, the time, you know, that's required around those projects isn't that much different. And so it was really a, uh...
and a, a look and saying, "Hey, where is our time kind of best spent, and where are our resources kind of best allocated?"
And so kind of dedicating both the time and the resources to sites that we fully own, that we own 100%, all right? So all the effort that we're putting in, we're getting 100% of that, uh, benefit on the back end.
And sites where we can kind of continue to grow the, and build a platform. Again, Muskie, you know, we've got a, a gigawatt there where, you know, we've expansion at Lake Mariner.
So sites that we wholly own and sites that we can continue to grow and expand are where we should be spending both our time, which is kind of, you know, some of the most valuable things we have, as well as the capital and the resources that we have.
And so that was really the, the decision there. And so, um, again, Fluid Stack remains a wonderful partner. Uh, we w- work very closely with them up at the Lake Mariner site.
But the view was is, "Hey, let's kind of exit the JV, let Fluid Stack run with that, and kind of reallocate our resources, you know, to wholly owned sites where we can kinda continue to build and grow." All right, Nas.
Last question. This one actually comes from the audience. And sorry, the investors, the Wolf investors aren't gonna be, uh, aren- aren't gonna let y'all rest on your laurels after the Anthropic deal.
They're wondering what's coming next. So this is coming from JZS, JZ Squared: "What are the operational and executional challenges you anticipate as you work to get Muskie fully approved and built, if any?"
So the, the, uh, execution challenges, right, I mean, in that deal, we are working with Kentucky Power, which is a subsidiary of AEP, which is one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the country.
And they've been a wonderful partner to work with as well.
And if you think about this, right, this is an approach where the utility is seeing the demand that's coming from data centers and saying, "Hey, we're the utility here. We best understand the transmission system.
We best understand how to bring power generation to bear. Let us do our thing, and let's work with the customer, and clearly outline to the customer what our requirements are." Right?
So as a part of that transaction, um, we're operating under their industrial IGS tariff. Uh, we're required to post kind of credit for both the transmission and energy pieces that we will, uh, take.
And then we get to focus on building the data center, right? Building, identifying the customer and building the data center. The first power that we have available there is the third quarter of 2028,
and so, uh, there are a few things that we need to do on the front end to solidify the timeline for delivery of the data center capacity. Again, AEP has taken the responsibility to deliver the transmission and the power.
And so once we get that locked in, which we hope to do so, you know, in the next, you know, few months, we will then be back at it, right? Talking to customers around taking that capacity down.
And the benefit of that site is, is, you know, there's another 500 megawatts right behind it coming in 2030 as well. And so again, that's a gigawatt.
That's, again, that AEP from a transmission perspective has fully diligenced, approved, signed off on. We've got a signed, you know, kind of transmission agreement with them.
So it's now really on us to kind of get the site ready. Um, what's interesting with that site is it used to be a, um, a mountaintop coal mine. Right, so basically they stripped kind of coal off the top of a mountain.
There's now, coal's no longer there, so there's a big wide open space.
It's likely to be nothing other than an industrial site, and so we're working with the local community there to kinda get things dialed in so we can, um, have those discussions.
So it's really, again, getting the pieces together. Again, we went through a similar exercise in Hawesville, right? We had purchased a site. Was, had a different use case at, at that site.
We needed to work with the local communities in getting them informed about what we were doing, how we were doing it, what that meant for them.
And once we had that all dialed in, then we were able to kinda go out to the market and finalize, um, things with Anthropic with respect to lease. And so we're in the middle of that same process on Muskie as well.
So it's again, it's a lot of the sim- similar things that we did in Hawesville, uh, for the site that we have in Western Kentucky, um, that we're doing here and in, in Eastern Kentucky.
And so, um, the benefit is, is kind of we've, you know, been through this process s- you know, pretty recently. We're working through that.
As soon as, again, we get some of those things, uh, aligned with the local community again on the timing, what we're doing, how it's all gonna work, you know, we'll again be in front of all of the various, you know, friends and partners we have that are looking for, for capacity.
And so, uh, hopefully, again, it's kind of, uh, an- another execution similar to what we've done in, in Hawesville, Kentucky already. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for updates on it.
As always, plenty going on in y'all's corner of the world. Nas, thank you so much for joining. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for going a little over with us. Pleasure. Thank you.
Yeah, best of luck with the rest of the year. Wonderful. We'll see you guys soon. Thank you so much for your time. See you around.
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