Hut 8 price target hiked to $165 at Benchmark as AI pivot reshapes valuation

Summary

• Benchmark raised its price target on Hut 8 to $165 from $85, while reiterating its buy rating on the stock, citing the value created by the Beacon Point AI data center project.
• The broker estimated Hut 8 has secured $16.8 billion in contracted lease value across two AI campuses, with potential to grow to $42.8 billion if renewal options are exercised.
• Hut 8's expanding 9-gigawatt development pipeline and low-cost project financing support a long-term growth story despite recent share price weakness.

Wall Street broker Benchmark nearly doubled its price target on Hut 8 (HUT) to $165 from $85, saying the commercialization of the company's Beacon Point AI data center campus significantly increases its valuation and reinforces its transition into an AI infrastructure developer.

That would be about 65% upside from Hut 8's current price near $100.

Analyst Mark Palmer reiterated his buy rating on the stock, arguing that the market has yet to fully reflect Hut 8's rapid execution after the stock fell nearly 30% over the past six weeks despite what Benchmark described as strong operating momentum.

“We are raising our price target for HUT to $165 to incorporate our estimate of the contribution of the companys Beacon Point AI data center campus, the second and larger of its two commercialized hyperscale projects, and to reflect the acceleration of its evolution into something akin to a power-first data center REIT with an embedded development machine,” analyst Mark Palmer said in the Tuesday report.

Bitcoin miners are increasingly expanding beyond their core business into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, seeking to capitalize on surging demand for data center capacity amid more volatile bitcoin mining margins.