HIVE Digital Technologies is marking a significant pivot from its roots in Bitcoin mining to embracing the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The company’s subsidiary, BUZZ High Performance Computing, has secured a monumental $220 million, three-year GPU cloud contract with Bell Canada and Toronto-based AI firm Cohere. This collaboration entails the deployment of 2,304 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs at Bell’s purpose-built data center in Merritt, British Columbia.
This landmark agreement elevates HIVE’s contracted high-performance computing (HPC) revenue to over $100 million, with an additional $70 million anticipated in new annual recurring revenue once the setup is fully operational. Following the announcement, HIVE’s stock surged by more than 7% on the Toronto Stock Exchange, indicating strong investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction.
The GPUs, designed specifically for cutting-edge AI model training and inference, will support Cohere’s AI platform, catering to Canadian enterprises and government clients. The concept of “sovereign AI” plays a critical role in this partnership, emphasizing the importance of infrastructure that operates within national borders and is managed by local entities. This focus is particularly relevant for government agencies concerned about data privacy and security. The Canadian government has actively invested in domestic AI compute capabilities, committing over $2 billion as part of its Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, including a substantial $240 million investment in Cohere.
Cohere has swiftly emerged as a key player in the AI landscape, developing foundational models that drive essential functions like enterprise chatbots and document processing. The company’s recent merger with Germany’s Aleph Alpha has valued the newly formed entity at around $20 billion, affirming its position at the forefront of AI technology. Notably, the partnership between Bell and Cohere dates back to July 2022, and the current contract is set to enhance their collaborative efforts.
Frank Holmes, executive chairman of HIVE Digital Technologies, expressed confidence in the partnership’s potential, stating, “Canada helped pioneer modern artificial intelligence. What we have lacked is not talent, it is industrial infrastructure to commercialize that talent at scale before others do it for us.” He emphasized the significance of BUZZ HPC as a “GPU factory layer” essential for transforming Canada’s AI ambitions into tangible assets.
Transitioning from Bitcoin mining, which has seen increasingly volatile returns, HIVE has embraced the robust demand for AI compute resources. This shift began in earnest last year, with the company reallocating GPU resources and securing new hardware agreements, thereby positioning itself in a sector that offers multi-year contracts, particularly from government clients—a stark contrast to the unpredictable crypto market.
As HIVE prepares for the deployment of the Bell and Cohere servers—expected to commence between late 2026 and early 2027—the company anticipates substantial growth, aiming for approximately $360 million in annual recurring revenue from a larger project: a 320-megawatt AI data center in the Greater Toronto Area. Once fully operational, this facility aims to house over 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs.
Looking ahead, HIVE has set an ambitious target of reaching $660 million in annual HPC revenue by the end of 2028, solidifying its commitment to becoming a pivotal player in the AI infrastructure space.
