US-based digital infrastructure company Bit Digital has purchased a site in Montreal, Canada for C$33.5m ($23.3m).
The real estate and building site, known as MTL2, will be developed into a custom-built 5-megawatt (MW) Tier-3 data centre project.
Headquartered in New York, Bit Digital plans to invest C$27.6m to develop the site, with the project expected to be operational by May 2025.
Spanning 160,000 square feet, the MTL2 site was previously used as an encapsulation manufacturing facility, is located in Pointe-Claire, Quebec.
Bit Digital funded the acquisition with cash and is securing mortgage financing for the site and infrastructure capital expenditure.
This acquisition aligns with Bit Digital's strategy to expand its data centre footprint to 32MW by 2025, part of its 288MW pipeline.
Bit Digital intends to retrofit the site with cooling technology, including direct-to-chip liquid cooling, to enhance energy efficiency.
The facility will run entirely on renewable hydroelectric power from Hydro-Quebec and offers expansion potential, allowing for scalable growth to meet market demand, the company said.
The data centre will support artificial intelligence (AI) and “high-performance” workloads with 150kilowatt rack density.
Bit Digital is working with third parties to implement a heat reject loop to improve the sustainability profile of the data centre.
Bit Digital CEO Sam Tabar said: “This site acquisition marks an important step forward in our data centre growth plans. This site is a Class A industrial property that was a former encapsulation manufacturing facility that included premium infrastructure specifications. It is located in one of the most desirable commercial real estate locations in Montreal.
"By leveraging the existing infrastructure, including over C$750,000 worth of advanced HVAC equipment included in the purchase, we are able to lower our development costs and accelerate our time to market – a key advantage and core tenet of our development strategy.”
Besides Canada and the US, Bit Digital operates bitcoin mining facilities in Iceland.
