Cryptomining firm Avax One is set to acquire a site in Canada amid a wider pivot to AI and HPC.
The company recently announced it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the Bantry Data site, a data center site in Alberta, Canada.
Under the proposed terms, Avax would acquire the site for $2.3 million with a targeted closing date of August 1. Full details haven’t been shared.
Avax said the development would build on its existing Alberta operations and its broader planned AI/HPC infrastructure build-out. The company said the site fits its development model, targeting behind-the-meter sites capable of supporting modular data center deployments.
“The Bantry Data Site represents exactly the kind of asset we are targeting — an energy-advantaged, behind-the-meter site that can be developed into productive AI and HPC compute capacity on an accelerated timeline,” said Jolie Kahn, CEO of Avax One. “As we advance our data center initiatives in Western Canada, acquisitions like this enable us to build a robust portfolio of powered sites that support our infrastructure strategy without relying on traditional utility timelines. We look forward to completing due diligence and moving toward a definitive agreement in the coming weeks.”
Previously known as AgriForce, Avax describes itself as a “digital infrastructure company accelerating the transition to an onchain financial economy.”
The firm has cryptomine sites mining Bitcoin in Alberta and Ohio.
The company launched Bitcoin Mining operations in December 2024 with the acquisition of its first mining facility in Alberta, Canada. The $1.5m Redwater facility, located outside Edmonton in Sturgeon County, was acquired from Rivogenix Energy Corp. That site is powered by flared gas. At the time, the company said the excess heat from the site would be used for agriculture.
Avax acquired the two Ohio sites, totaling 5MW of flared-gas-powered cryptomine around East Palestine in Columbiana County, in early 2025. The site hosts more than 1,660 mining rigs.
Last month, the firm said it would convert 100kW of mining capacity towards AI inferencing workloads at its Redwater facility as a pilot.
The company has previously said it is developing a 10MW behind-the-meter project at the 4-31 Battery site outside Calgary in Alberta alongside BlueFlare Energy Solutions Inc. that is due live in Q1 2027. The project will use flared gas for primary power and will be leased to an Edge computing client.
“We believe power is the scarcest resource in AI, and we already own it,” CEO Kahn said at the time. “This pilot answers a simple question with real customers and real workloads: how much more can our power earn serving AI than mining Bitcoin? It’s a fast, low-cost test of the thesis behind our entire power-first strategy. Every hour the hardware is not serving AI, it keeps mining Bitcoin, so nothing is wasted while we learn. What we prove here flows directly into our new 10MW Tier III-ready facility initiative in Alberta, targeted for client readiness in Q1 2027, along with our future projects.”
Avax has previously said it planned to deploy 1.3MW of natural gas-powered mining capacity across five sites in Alberta (two each in Hinton and Berwyn and one in Oyen). 425kW of capacity went live at the first Berwyn site in June 2025.
Newbit Technology was previously mining crypto at its 10MW Bantry site in Canada, close to the Campus Energy gas processing complex near Brooks. It’s unclear if this is the site Avax has acquired.
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is an advisor to Avax through his SkyBridge Capital company.
Nasdaq-listed Avax rebranded from AgriForce last year to focus on the Avalanche blockchain. AgriForce was previously an agritech firm focused on developing and acquiring agricultural IP related to plant cultivation and processing, and it offered a proprietary greenhouse facility known as the Grow House. After moving into crypto in 2024, the company began offering “decentralized compute platforms powered by mobile, off-grid, natural gas systems” through its TerraHash Digital division last year.