Business 4 min read By Arthur Ellington
Ben Gagnon steers former Bitcoin miner Bitfarms into AI data centres
Ben Gagnon, the 37-year-old chief executive of Bitfarms, is leading the company's pivot from Bitcoin mining into artificial intelligence infrastructure, a shift that more than a dozen crypto miners are also pursuing.
Ben Gagnon, the 37-year-old chief executive of the former Bitcoin miner Bitfarms, is steering the company out of cryptocurrency mining and into the infrastructure needed to run artificial intelligence. The company, which has been rebranded Keel Infrastructure, is one of a growing number of crypto miners seeking to capitalise on the surge in demand for data centre capacity.
Gagnon became chief executive in July 2024, having previously served as Bitfarms' chief mining officer. He first proposed leaving Bitcoin mining in late 2023, at a time when the company's prospects in that business were weakening. The model he pointed to was the March 2024 deal in which Core Scientific agreed to host CoreWeave's operations at a site in Austin, a transaction that showed how existing mining power and facilities could be converted into hosting capacity for AI computing.
The move came after a period of turmoil at the company. Bitfarms faced a lawsuit involving its former chief executive, its share price had fallen, and its leadership had changed several times. Riot Platforms then made a hostile takeover bid worth $930 million, offering $2.30 per share. Bitfarms responded by adopting a poison pill, a defensive measure that makes a takeover more expensive for an outside buyer. Riot later sold its shares, and as part of the resolution the company agreed to give Riot a seat on its board.
The strategy has since taken concrete form. In August 2024 Bitfarms announced the acquisition of Stronghold Digital for $175 million. Stronghold's sites are former coal-waste power plants in Pennsylvania, and the company is now targeting them as AI campuses, although that depends on securing new power approvals. On 1 April 2026 the business was rebranded Keel Infrastructure, and it has since moved its legal domicile from Canada to the United States.
Gagnon's own route into the sector has been unusual. He grew up in Hong Kong and holds degrees from Indiana and Hong Kong. His early crypto ventures included a Bitcoin-related Ethereum mining rig in Taipei and an operation in Guangzhou, both of which were later shut down. At Bitfarms he oversaw projects that used flared natural gas from Alberta to power containerised Bitcoin data centres, experience that now informs his approach to securing energy for computing.
Access to power is central to the pivot. Leaders in the AI industry, including Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Abel, have cited electricity supply as the main bottleneck to expanding AI computing. That makes sites with existing grid connections and power assets more valuable, a point that may be reinforced by growing local opposition to new data centres, which became visible around the recent election period.
Keel is not alone. More than ten crypto miners have moved fully or partly into AI hosting. Riot has signed a $9.1 billion lease with Anthropic for a site in Texas, Hut 8 has agreed a $7 billion deal involving Google and Anthropic in Louisiana, and Applied Digital has struck an $11 billion agreement with CoreWeave in North Dakota. Companies are taking different paths: some are exiting Bitcoin mining altogether, while others are pursuing a hybrid model that keeps mining alongside new AI work. Their business roles also differ, with some acting as compute providers and others as developers or co-location hosts.
Whether the strategy will deliver is still uncertain. The power approvals needed for Keel's Stronghold sites have not yet been secured, and it is not yet clear whether lease revenues will materialise as planned. For Gagnon and his company, the outcome will determine whether the transition from crypto mining to AI infrastructure becomes a lasting reinvention.
Source: fortune.com
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