Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits. ~The White House, July 2025
What a week this was! On Tuesday, I participated on a panel at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, where I discussed why Bitcoin miners have a head start in the race for AI compute.
One point I made that drew strong agreement is that AI is not a bubble, as some people claim. This is real technology being deployed in life-or-death situations. The example I pointed out is that the Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude AI model (through its partnership with Palantir) in the military operation to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Zero American soldiers were killed.
By Wednesday, members of our BUZZ HPC team were at the DiscoveryX conference in Toronto, where Geoffrey Hinton—the Nobel laureate known as the “godfather of AI”— delivered a keynote on the history of AI, and where it could be headed.
Between the two events, a single theme emerged: sovereign AI.
It’s a concept I believe every investor needs to understand. And it may represent one of the largest investment opportunities of the decade.
What Is Sovereign AI? And Why Now?
Sovereign AI refers to a nation’s ability to develop and control its own AI infrastructure. I’m referring to the data centers, compute power, energy and talent needed to build and run AI systems domestically, rather than relying on a handful of corporations.
The urgency is easy to understand when you look at the concentration of power. As the UK’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall pointed out this week, 70% of global AI compute is now controlled by just five tech companies. In a speech, she called for a “decisive move” toward British AI self-sufficiency, arguing that nations that fail to master the defining technology of the time risk ceding control over both their security and economic future.
Britian isn’t alone. Canada just announced a $2 billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy to build domestic capacity. Days later, Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the Canada Strong Fund, a $25 billion sovereign wealth fund targeting critical infrastructure, including energy and minerals.
Indeed, it’s estimated that between 30% and 40% of all global AI spending could be influenced by sovereignty requirements, representing a potential market of $500 billion to $600 billion by 2030, according to McKinsey.
The Commodity Squeeze Behind the AI Boom
What makes this story especially relevant to commodity and resource investors is that sovereign AI ambitions are colliding with hard physical constraints.
Consider the scale of what’s being built. In the first quarter of this year, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta—the four largest hyperscalers—spent a combined $130 billion, largely on data centers. This marked a 71% increase from a year earlier. All four companies indicated they’re planning to spend even more, with total outlays on track to reach roughly $700 billion this year.
You can’t will this type of infrastructure into existence, though. AI-optimized data centers require 100 to 500 megawatts of power, enough to run entire cities. Each megawatt of data center capacity requires approximately 27 tons of copper for wiring and cooling, and copper continues to trade at historically high prices.
Bromine, essential for circuit etching, has surged to $12,000 per metric ton. Meanwhile, helium, critical for cooling semiconductor wafers, has seen spot prices double after Iran bombed Qatari LNG facilities, which produce a third of the world’s supply.
Why Bitcoin Miners Hold the Keys
This is exactly the thesis I laid out in February, and since then, the sovereign AI wave has only intensified.
Bitcoin miners already control the scarce physical inputs—power contracts, land, cooling systems, substations—that nations now desperately need to build domestic AI capacity. And because the critical infrastructure is already in place, miners can cut data center deployment times by as much as 75% compared to traditional builders.
The market has validated this. Public Bitcoin miners have signed over $70 billion in AI and high-performance computing contracts with hyperscalers. According to CoinShares, AI infrastructure can generate three times the revenue per megawatt compared to mining. An estimated 70% of mining companies have now pivoted to include AI in their portfolios.
At HIVE Digital Technologies, we made this move early with the launch of Buzz HPC, which operates sovereign AI cloud services in Canada and the Nordics, two regions with natural advantages in renewable energy, climate-friendly cooling and available land.
Follow the Money
I often tell investors to follow the money, and right now, the money’s flowing into AI infrastructure at a pace we’ve never seen. Data center construction spending is projected to rise 23% this year, even as offices, hotels and warehouses decline. Sovereign wealth funds are increasingly deploying capital across the AI value chain, from energy and real estate to chips and cloud services.
For investors, the sovereign AI boom is creating, what I believe, is a generational opportunity. Bitcoin miners didn’t just see this coming. We built for it.
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