HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE) shares jumped more than 22% on Monday, touching an intraday high above $7 and closing around $5.20—a seven-month peak—after researchers from Columbia University published findings that validate the company’s AI GPU cluster in Paraguay. The study, conducted by Columbia’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, found that HIVE’s older Nvidia A40 GPUs could match the performance of modern H100 systems on certain large language model (LLM) pretraining workloads, specifically for models up to 1.4 billion parameters.
Over a two-month period, the research team optimized code for the A40 hardware, measuring throughput, latency, and bandwidth. After normalizing for raw performance differences, the A40 results aligned with those seen on H100 setups. The researchers also ran serving throughput and latency tests on the 1.4B-parameter model and standard benchmarks for LLaMA models. All training was executed from New York on GPUs located more than 5,000 miles away in Asunción, Paraguay, demonstrating that intercontinental AI training is feasible without sacrificing performance.
Executive Chairman Frank Holmes called the achievement a “proof of concept” that high-performance computing can transcend geography, while CEO Aydin Kilic said the A40-H100 parity validates the company’s engineering-led approach. The findings have been submitted to NeurIPS, a premier machine learning conference, adding academic credibility to HIVE’s pivot from Bitcoin mining toward AI infrastructure.
The validation comes as HIVE rapidly scales its AI footprint. In Yguazú, Paraguay, a 100-megawatt substation has completed civil works, with commissioning expected this summer and full energization in September 2026. Construction of a Tier III data center is slated for fall 2026, with service entry in the second half of 2027. Additionally, HIVE recently announced a three-year, $220 million AI cloud contract with Bell Canada and Cohere, involving over 2,300 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPUs that is projected to add approximately $70 million in annual recurring revenue later this year. The company is also planning a 320-megawatt “AI gigafactory” in the Toronto area capable of supporting more than 100,000 GPUs.
Holmes emphasized that the Columbia collaboration provides external validation for HIVE’s transition beyond Bitcoin mining, marking a milestone for both the company and Paraguay: “Paraguay has the power, the strategic location, and now the proof point.”
