Bitcoin mining giant Hut8 is in the process of transferring equipment from its currently dormant North Bay location, all the while experiencing a surge in demand for AI and high-power computing.

Hut 8 Mining is tapping into burgeoning interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing while it transfers about 6,400 mining units from its currently idle North Bay site located in Ontario, Canada.

Earlier reports highlighted Hut 8’s ongoing legal tussle with its third-party energy provider, Validus Power, who allegedly didn’t fulfill the terms of their contract. This disagreement led to the mining operations at the facility being put on hold since November 2022.

While Hut 8 chose not to divulge any details regarding the court case when approached by Cointelegraph, it did confirm that they are relocating 6,400 miners to Texas. This move is part of the company’s strategy to reactivate its currently dormant equipment.

The firm anticipates this particular batch of miners to be fully operational by July end 2023. It is expected to deliver 600 petahashes per second of processing capacity, pushing Hut 8’s total installed hash rate to 3.2 exahashes per second.

Hut 8 has secured a three-month hosting agreement for these North Bay miners and plans to extend the deal on a month-to-month basis. Earlier in March 2023, Hut 8 relocated 988 miners from North Bay to its Medicine Hat site in Alberta, Canada.

Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton also provided her insights into the present scenario for the cryptocurrency mining industry given the tough market conditions that have persisted for roughly 18 months:

“The sector has shown remarkable resilience in the past few months, and the momentum has been more than we initially anticipated. This is partly because our counterparts have been taking cues from us in the high-performance computing and AI sectors.”

AI and high-performance computing are increasingly becoming the focus of attention and drawing investments. Companies like Inflection AI, based in Palo Alto, have been successful in raising $1.8 billion from industry leaders such as Microsoft and Nvidia. Part of these funds will go towards building a 22,000-unit Nvidia H100 Tensor GPU cluster.

In addition to this, Hut 8 is also starting to utilize its infrastructure to power services and solutions that go beyond its Bitcoin mining-centric operations.

Leverton pointed out a recent five-year agreement to supply computer infrastructure and hosting services to the Interior Health authority of British Columbia. She also noted a collaborative case study with 3D generative AI company XYZ AI.