Cryptomining company Hut 8 is expanding its operations in Texas and has signed a power purchase agreement to procure 205MW of energy for a new data center.
The company plans to build the facility on an undisclosed greenfield site in West Texas.
Technical specifications of the data center and a timeline for the project have not been shared, but Hut 8 claimed the energy capacity is available “immediately.”
Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8, said: “This transaction exemplifies Hut 8’s differentiated approach to securing new energy capacity through mutually accretive partnerships
“We continue to identify opportunities to work hand-in-hand with energy partners to develop bespoke structures that generate outsized value for every party involved. We believe this partnership-driven approach sets us apart as we continue to build development partnerships across the energy value chain.”
The site is said to be adjacent to a wind farm and connected to Texas’s Ercot grid. Hut 8 believes this will give it “access to some of the lowest locational wholesale power pricing in North America.”
The site has an existing, operational substation, and engineering, procurement, and construction efforts for a new data center are underway, the company said. It added: “The site is well-positioned to support a variety of high-density compute applications, including Bitcoin mining and AI. Hut 8 is finalizing a commercialization plan for the site with the aim of maximizing its value.”
Florida-based Hut 8 has an existing portfolio of 19 sites: ten Bitcoin sites in Alberta, New York, and Texas; five high-performance computing data centers in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada; and four power generation assets in Ontario. It acquired five colo data centers in Canada from TeraGo in 2022.
Like many cryptomining firms, it is expanding its offering to try and cash in on the AI boom, and in June secured $150 million in fresh funding from investment fund Coatue to help it serve more AI customers.
Hut 8 says the West Texas deal means it has 1.3GW of power in its infrastructure portfolio.