Summary

  • Cipher Digital held $3.357 billion of construction in progress at 30 September 2026, compared with $276.5 million at the end of 2025. Its filing separately reported about $1.610 billion of supplier commitments, mainly for construction at sites with HPC tenant leases.
  • HPC leasing produced $5.852 million of third-quarter revenue after Black Pearl began phased delivery in August. Barber Lake and Stingray were still scheduled to begin in late 2026 and 2027 respectively.

The expensive part of a data centre starts before the rent. In its September 2026 Form 10-Q, Cipher Digital puts $3.357 billion into construction in progress. Nine months earlier, that line was $276.5 million. Concrete, electrical systems and unfinished halls have moved onto the balance sheet at a speed that a leasing headline cannot capture.

There is another number in Note 13: roughly $1.610 billion of commitments to suppliers, primarily for construction. The company says most of those commitments relate to sites with HPC tenant leases. That is useful evidence of demand attachment. It also places the obligation on Cipher's side of the table. Suppliers have work to deliver and contracts to collect under; tenants begin generating billable rent as halls are handed over and the relevant lease terms take effect.

These are different accounting measures. Construction in progress is capitalized work already recorded. Supplier commitments are contractual purchases still to be fulfilled. Adding the two would count overlapping phases of the build as one invented bill. The filing gives neither a site-by-site split of the $1.610 billion nor a calendar that matches each supplier payment to a tenant acceptance. That missing schedule is the fact that would change the financing assessment.

The operating calendar is visible in pieces. Black Pearl, a 300 MW site previously used for bitcoin mining, began phased delivery to an HPC tenant in August 2026. Barber Lake, also 300 MW, was expected to begin phased commencement in the fourth quarter of 2026; the 100 MW Stingray site was expected to start in 2027. Those are three different stages, not 700 MW of rent arriving in one envelope. The quarter produced $5.852 million of HPC leasing revenue. Bitcoin mining still produced $20.849 million. The old engine has not disappeared, while the new one has only started to bill.

Cash is another tempting shortcut. The balance sheet lists $656.0 million of cash and equivalents, alongside $1.719 billion of current restricted cash and $477.2 million of noncurrent restricted cash. A dollar under restriction does not have the same freedom as a dollar in the ordinary cash line. During the first nine months of 2026, Cipher paid about $2.517 billion for property and equipment and used about $283.2 million in operating activities. It has financed the build through a mix of debt and other sources described in the filing.

The public statements do not allocate those sources against each remaining construction obligation and rent start date.

That is the real market wager. A lease can give a project a buyer before the building is finished. It cannot install switchgear or sign an acceptance certificate. Cipher has already moved a large construction balance onto its books and accepted further supplier commitments. The quality of the transaction will be settled by how quickly those assets become operating halls that tenants accept and pay for.