HIVE Expands AI Data Centers in Canada as Sweden Bitcoin Hashrate Winds Down

HIVE is expanding its AI data center footprint in Canada while preparing to wind down portions of its Bitcoin hashrate in Sweden after a prolonged dispute with local tax authorities.

HIVE said Monday that its AI infrastructure unit, BUZZ High Performance Computing, will increase its liquid-cooled AI data center capacity in Canada fourfold, expanding from 4 megawatts of critical IT load in Manitoba to 16.6 megawatts across two provinces through a colocation partnership with Bell Canada’s AI Fabric network.

The expansion includes a new facility in British Columbia that will initially provide 5 megawatts of capacity, with an option to scale by another 7.6 megawatts starting in 2027. HIVE said the site will support about 2,000 next-generation GPUs optimized for artificial-intelligence workloads, adding to the roughly 2,000 GPUs expected to run at its Manitoba facility.

Combined, the two sites provide a near-term pathway to deploy more than 4,000 GPUs, part of the company’s broader goal of reaching 6,000 GPUs in Canada as it builds out a sovereign AI cloud offering. HIVE is targeting about $200 million in annualized run-rate revenue from its high-performance computing segment by the end of its fiscal year in March 2027.

The company said deposits made in 2025 with its colocation partner are sufficient to secure the additional capacity, meaning no new capital expenditure is required to lock in the expansion. Operational spending will instead focus on acquiring and installing GPU clusters and running the facilities.

The announcement underscores HIVE’s growing push into AI infrastructure as many publicly traded Bitcoin miners attempt to diversify revenue streams beyond cryptocurrency mining, which has become more volatile following Bitcoin’s most recent halving and fluctuations in mining profitability.

At the same time, HIVE said it is gradually phasing out its ASIC-based Bitcoin mining operations in Sweden, where it has operated since 2017 using renewable power. The shift follows a series of enforcement actions by the Swedish Tax Agency related to the treatment of value-added tax on equipment and other expenses tied to the company’s mining activities.

The agency has issued a series of assessments totaling about 729.6 million Swedish krona ($79.2 million) covering VAT claims from 2020 through early 2025 across two Swedish subsidiaries, Bikupa Datacenter AB and Bikupa Datacenter 2 AB. HIVE has formally appealed the decisions, arguing the agency’s interpretation is incompatible with existing tax law and lacks precedent.

The disputes remain before Sweden’s County Administrative Court. However, the tax authority recently denied a deferral request and demanded payment of roughly 84 million krona ($9.4 million) tied to a portion of the assessments covering August 2024 through February 2025. HIVE said it is contesting the ruling while exploring options such as a bank guarantee or insurance.

The regulatory pressure has created operational uncertainty for the company’s traditional mining business in Sweden, prompting the strategic shift.

Instead of continuing to operate large fleets of specialized Bitcoin mining machines, HIVE said it plans to convert its 7-megawatt facility in Boden into a Tier-III data center designed to host GPU clusters for AI workloads. The upgraded site is expected to support systems based on Nvidia’s GB300 architecture for training and inference tasks.

The move reflects a broader repositioning of the company’s infrastructure portfolio. HIVE said its Canadian and European sites are increasingly being evaluated for AI and high-performance computing deployments, including potential hyperscale, government, or defense-related contracts.