HIVE Digital Technologies just announced plans to build a 320 MW AI data center in Ontario’s Greater Toronto Area, a facility the company is calling a “gigafactory” that would house more than 100,000 GPUs at full capacity. The project carries a targeted investment of CAD $3.5 billion, roughly $2.5 billion USD, making it one of the largest AI infrastructure bets by a company that built its name mining Bitcoin.

Investors apparently liked what they heard. HIVE’s stock surged 25-28% immediately following the May 18 announcement.

What HIVE is actually building

The company acquired approximately 25 acres of land in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor for CAD $58 million. HIVE has secured a 320 MW power allocation from Ontario’s clean energy grid, which includes nuclear, hydro, and renewable sources.

The facility will use closed-loop cooling systems designed to minimize water consumption. Operations are projected to begin in the second half of 2027. The build is expected to create more than 800 construction jobs along with hundreds of permanent skilled positions once operational.

From Bitcoin mining to GPU compute

Currently, HIVE has about 5,500 GPUs online for AI compute. Going from 5,500 to over 100,000 is a roughly 18x increase in GPU deployment.

The Ontario gigafactory isn’t HIVE’s only expansion play. The company has a 70 MW site in New Brunswick as part of a broader pipeline that would support approximately 130,000 GPUs total. Its global power capacity is moving toward 850 MW across all operations.

HIVE reported fiscal year 2026 revenue of $297.8 million, a 158% increase year-over-year.

What this means for investors

A CAD $3.5 billion capital commitment from a company with $297.8 million in annual revenue is ambitious by any standard. Financing that build-out will require some combination of debt, equity, partnerships, or pre-committed customer contracts.

Major AI companies including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all made net-zero pledges that make the carbon intensity of their compute supply chain a procurement factor. A facility powered by Ontario’s nuclear-heavy grid scores well on that metric.

The competitive landscape includes CoreWeave, Lambda, and a growing list of well-funded startups all racing to build or lease AI compute infrastructure, alongside hyperscalers spending tens of billions annually on their own data centers.