Hut 8 Corp (NASDAQ:HUT) shares are surging Thursday as AI infrastructure names catch a broad bid following Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) quarterly earnings call, with a fresh Morgan Stanley initiation adding a stock-specific catalyst on top of the sector tailwind.
- Hut 8 stock is charging ahead with explosive momentum. Why is HUT stock surging?
Alphabet’s Third-Party Comment Sent HUT Higher in After-Hours
Wednesday’s after-hours move began with a single comment from Alphabet’s finance chief. CFO Anat Ashkenazi told listeners on the company’s earnings call that Google intends to bring in more third-party data center capacity during the third quarter to bridge the gap while its own construction pipeline catches up with demand.
The reason she gave was straightforward: years of aggressive internal buildout have still not been enough to keep pace with what customers are asking for. Hut 8 jumped in after-hours trading on the back of that comment.
Alphabet put real dollars behind that admission, revising its full-year 2026 capital expenditure forecast upward to a band of $195 billion to $205 billion from the previous $180 billion to $190 billion range, and flagged that 2027 spending is expected to grow even more substantially.
Morgan Stanley Enters the Story With a $263 Target
Adding a stock-specific layer to the session’s gains is Morgan Stanley’s decision to initiate coverage of Hut 8 with an Overweight rating and a $263 price objective, a level that implies that shares could more than double. Analyst Stephen Byrd grounded his enthusiasm in what he views as an unmatched deal-execution record, arguing that Hut 8 has consistently extracted better terms from Bitcoin-to-HPC transitions than any of its peers.
His base case runs through a valuation methodology modeled on how income-producing real estate is typically assessed, placing the 2,680 megawatts the company commands at a total value of $11.6 billion, which translates to $11.7 per watt. He was quick to point out that the company’s own transaction history has averaged around $17 per watt, making the base case look conservative by comparison.
The River Bend Campus anchored his deal review as the agreement that briefly set the standard for the entire category, generating $18.50 per watt in shareholder value before TeraWulf’s $19 billion Justified Data Campus transaction nudged it from the top spot.
Byrd’s confidence stems less from any single deal and more from the sequence that followed, with Hut 8 returning to close at Beacon Point within five months of River Bend and then filling out that campus’s remaining available megawatts just this past Monday, a pattern that suggests disciplined and repeatable execution rather than fortunate timing.
HUT Shares Are Flying
HUT Price Action: Hut 8 shares were up 7.65% at $118.16 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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