HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. announced its high-performance computing (HPC) arm, BUZZ, has signed customer agreements worth approximately $30 million to advance its AI cloud ambitions. According to a press release, the Canadian company secured two-year, fixed-term contracts for its Tier-III data center platform, subject to performance obligations. These contracts are expected to accelerate the expansion of HIVE's Tier-III operations, which support advanced AI and HPC workloads.
The new deals anchor the first phase of BUZZ's AI-optimized GPU deployment at its Canada West facility in Manitoba. Compute capacity from this phase is scheduled to come online during the quarter ending March 31, 2026. The initial build-out consists of 504 liquid-cooled GPUs on Dell servers, dedicated to high-performance AI and HPC tasks.
Based on executed contracts and current pricing, HIVE expects this first phase to generate about $15 million in annual recurring revenue once fully operational. The company projects total annualized revenue from its HPC segment to increase from roughly $20 million to $35 million upon full deployment, subject to capital expenditures and customer utilization.
HIVE President Aydin Kilic stated the company could scale its HPC GPU AI cloud business toward approximately $140 million in annual recurring revenue over the next year. He emphasized that "demand for long-term access to high-performance, power-efficient AI compute continues to expand globally." Previously, the firm revealed plans to deploy 2,000 AI-optimized GPUs at its Canada West facility in 2026.
Craig Tavares, President and COO of BUZZ HPC, highlighted the need for more sovereign AI compute capacity in Canada to serve local and global AI companies from a secure base.
Executive Chairman Frank Holmes noted the capital intensity of Tier-III facilities, explaining that constructing a comparable fully self-funded facility with similar GPU capacity could require around $70 million in capital expenditures, significantly higher than the ~$1 million per megawatt needed for Tier-I Bitcoin mining infrastructure.
Despite the AI push, HIVE remains committed to Bitcoin mining. The company reported a 290% year-over-year increase in hashrate for January 2026, reaching an average of 22.2 exahash per second and producing 297 Bitcoin. HIVE maintains over 2% of the global Bitcoin network hashrate.
This news follows a broader industry trend, as highlighted by Bitcoin miner IREN's reported $800 million investment into AI data center infrastructure over the past year—a sum exceeding its three-year Bitcoin mining expansion spend. This pivot is driven by declining mining margins post-halving, demonstrating how crypto-native firms are diversifying into high-growth compute sectors like AI.
