Blockfusion signs 15-year lease with unnamed AI customer at Niagara Falls campus

Blockfusion, once a cryptocurrency mining operation powered by Niagara Falls’ cheap hydroelectric energy, just locked in a deal that could be worth billions. The company’s subsidiary, North East Data, announced a letter of intent for up to 300 MW of critical IT capacity at its Niagara Falls, New York campus, with a 15-year initial lease term. The guaranteed portion alone, 85 MW of take-or-pay capacity, could generate roughly $2.8B in revenue over the initial 15-year period. If both optional five-year renewal periods are exercised, that figure balloons to approximately $5.4B over 25 years. From Bitcoin mining to GPU farms Blockfusion was founded in 2019 as a crypto mining company. The Niagara Falls location made perfect sense at the time: hydroelectric power at around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour is the kind of electricity cost that makes mining economics actually work. But the company’s leadership, CEO Alex Martini and COO Kant Trivedi, apparently read the room. The insatiable appetite for AI compute infrastructure has turned data center capacity into one of the hottest commodities in tech. So Blockfusion is retooling. The facility currently operates at approximately 50 MW. Plans call...