Hive Stock Spikes on $220M AI Deal Amid Pivot Away from Crypto Mining

HIVE Digital Technologies saw its stock surge over 7% on Thursday after announcing a massive $220 million GPU cloud contract with Bell Canada and Toronto-based AI firm Cohere. This deal, the largest yet for HIVE, marks a significant shift in the company's focus towards AI infrastructure.

The three-year contract involves 2,304 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs installed at Bell's data center in Merritt, British Columbia. Cohere will use this compute layer to run its platform for Canadian clients, aligning with Canada's push for 'sovereign AI' - a term that refers to AI running on domestic infrastructure.

HIVE's subsidiary, BUZZ High Performance Computing, is delivering the contract. This deal comes as part of Canada's efforts to commercialize its AI talent and build industrial infrastructure, with Ottawa committing over $2 billion to domestic AI compute.

Cohere, one of the few companies building foundation models for enterprise chatbots and government document processing, recently merged with Germany's Aleph Alpha in a deal valuing the combined company at roughly $20 billion. Frank Holmes, executive chairman at HIVE Digital Technologies, said this partnership is 'a defining moment' that transforms Canada's AI ambitions from promises into productive national assets.