HIVE Digital Technologies just dropped CAD $3.5 billion on what it’s calling an AI gigafactory in the Greater Toronto Area. The 320 MW facility, announced on May 18 through HIVE’s subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing, is designed to house over 100,000 GPUs and is expected to go live in the second half of 2027.

The project slots directly into Canada’s national ambition to reach 850 MW of sovereign compute capacity by 2030, with plans to eventually scale to 2.3 GW. Sovereign compute refers to a country’s ability to process its own AI workloads on its own soil, without relying on foreign data centers or cloud providers.

From Bitcoin mines to AI factories

HIVE built its reputation mining Bitcoin, not training large language models. But this gigafactory announcement signals a pivot toward high-performance computing and AI infrastructure.

BUZZ HPC is already operational with roughly 5,500 GPUs dedicated to AI workloads. A facility capable of supporting 100,000 GPUs represents a completely different weight class.

HIVE currently holds over 850 MW of power capacity globally. That breaks down to about 450 MW from operating data centers and a projected 400 MW pipeline expected to come online in 2027. The company’s Canadian operations already contribute 100 MW, and the new 320 MW project would more than quadruple that domestic footprint.

The land deal is already done. HIVE has secured approximately 25 acres for the GTA facility.

Clean energy and closed-loop cooling

The gigafactory will use a closed-loop system that eliminates water usage entirely, running on Ontario’s clean power grid.

Ontario’s grid runs heavily on nuclear and hydroelectric power, making it one of the cleaner electricity sources in North America.

The construction phase alone is expected to generate over 800 jobs, with hundreds of permanent positions following once operations begin.

Canada’s sovereign AI ambitions

The 850 MW target by 2030 isn’t just a HIVE goal. It’s a national one. If Canadian companies, government agencies, and research institutions need to process sensitive data using AI, doing it on servers controlled by foreign entities in foreign jurisdictions introduces risk. Sovereign compute means the hardware, the data, and the processing all stay within Canadian borders and under Canadian legal frameworks.

BUZZ HPC has signaled plans to expand beyond the GTA, with sovereign AI factories planned across several Canadian provinces.

What this means for investors

HIVE’s transformation from a blockchain-focused miner to an AI infrastructure company is a bet that the margin profile of renting GPU compute to enterprise clients will outperform the volatile economics of Bitcoin mining.

The CAD $3.5 billion price tag is substantial. How HIVE finances this, whether through equity raises, debt, government incentives, or some combination, will matter enormously for existing shareholders.

The clean energy component could also prove to be a competitive moat. As carbon reporting requirements tighten globally, enterprises choosing between two equivalent GPU clouds may default to the one that doesn’t saddle them with Scope 3 emissions from coal-fired electricity. Ontario’s grid gives HIVE that card to play.