Crypto news

A major player in digital assets and high-performance computing, HIVE Digital Technologies, has made a strategic move toward artificial intelligence. The company has signed a three-year contract worth $220 million aimed at deploying a powerful GPU infrastructure for sovereign AI projects in Canada.

Under the agreement, the BUZZ High Performance Computing division will install 2,304 Nvidia Grace Blackwell accelerators at a facility in Merritt, British Columbia. These resources will be used for training and inference of enterprise AI models developed by Cohere. The latter specializes in solutions for government agencies and large businesses, underscoring a focus on security and data sovereignty.

Key deal details:

• Value: $220 million over three years.
• Equipment: 2,304 Nvidia Grace Blackwell accelerators — among the most powerful solutions on the market for AI tasks.
• Location: Merritt, British Columbia, Canada.
• Launch: Expected in late 2026 to early 2027.
• Client: Cohere, primarily for the public sector and businesses.

This contract marks an important stage in HIVE's business diversification, as the company has historically been associated with cryptocurrency mining. The shift to providing high-performance computing power for AI is a logical step, given the growing demand for GPU resources and the declining profitability of traditional mining. The choice of a Canadian facility is also no coincidence: the country is actively developing its own AI ecosystem, aiming to reduce dependence on foreign data centers.

My analysis: This deal is not just a one-time lease of capacity but a long-term bet on the sovereign AI segment. For HIVE, it is an opportunity to move from the volatile cryptocurrency market to more stable and predictable contracts in the corporate computing sector. If the project is completed on time, the company could become one of the key AI infrastructure providers in Canada, significantly strengthening its market position.