Bitcoin miner Hut8 has committed $16 million to expand water capacity in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, as part of its plans to develop the Riverbend AI data center campus.
The investment includes new wells, about eight miles of water mains and other system upgrades, according to Tuesday’s announcement. Hut 8 said the property will be transferred to the diocese at no cost to taxpayers upon completion, which is scheduled for the second half of 2026.
The first phase of the Riverbend campus represents a multibillion-dollar capital investment and is expected to support approximately 1,000 construction workers during peak construction and at least 75 permanent jobs once operational, Hut8 said.
The company said the campus will use a closed-loop cooling system designed to reduce ongoing water demand and rely on water sources outside of residential aquifers.
The Riverbend campus is part of Hut8’s North American Energy and Digital Infrastructure Platform, which the company says is being developed in collaboration with stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
Hat 8 stocks have risen since the beginning of the year on the back of expansion of AI infrastructure
Despite posting consecutive quarterly losses in late 2025 and early 2026, Hut 8’s stock price is up about 93% year-to-date as investors increasingly focus on the company’s AI infrastructure and power leasing businesses, according to data from Bitcoinminingstock.io.
In December 2025, Hut8 signed a 15-year lease for 245MW of AI data center capacity at its Riverbend campus, valued at $7 billion, according to the company. Hut 8 said the deal includes payments that are financially backed by Google.
Pursuant to this agreement, the company announced in May that it had entered into a new 15-year lease tied to 352 MW of capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Texas, valued at $9.8 billion. Hut 8 added that contracted lease revenue associated with 597 MW of AI data center capacity across the two campuses is valued at a combined $16.8 billion.
Shares of publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have risen significantly this year, with the top 10 miners by market capitalization all up double digits since the start of the year, data shows.
sauce: Bitcoinminingstocks.io
This gain comes despite continued pressure on mining profitability across the sector. Publicly traded miners sold more than 32,000 bitcoins in the first quarter of 2026, but the hash price, a measure of miners’ profits, has fallen to about $35 per petahash per second per day, near the break-even point for some operators.
