en.Wedoany.com Reported - Canada-based former cryptocurrency miner Sato Technologies has signed a letter of intent to develop a 100MW AI data center project in Bhutan.
The data center will be located in Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), a planned development zone of approximately 2,600 square kilometers, accounting for about 5% of Bhutan's total land area. Announced in December 2023, GMC will have independent administrative, judicial, and legislative powers, aiming to attract foreign business and investment.
Sato stated that the first phase of the campus will include an initial development scale of 5MW, with potential expansion to 500MW.
The data center will rely on Bhutan's hydropower resources for electricity. Nearly all of Bhutan's electricity supply comes from hydropower. According to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, Bhutan's power generation in 2024 was approximately 2.5GW, meaning that if the data center expands to its maximum scale, it could consume up to 20% of the country's electricity.
Sato noted that these computing capacities will be used to meet the demand for "AI infrastructure" in nearby South Asian markets.
Both Sato and Bhutan have deep roots in the cryptocurrency field. Founded in 2017, Sato was formerly known as Canada's Computational Unlimited Corp, providing Bitcoin mining hosting services before pivoting to AI demand. A 20MW data center it operated in Quebec experienced a fire in June 2024. The Bhutanese government has also previously bet on using its hydropower resources for Bitcoin mining, holding the mined Bitcoin as a national reserve asset.
"Bhutan has abundant hydropower resources. Sometimes, we generate more clean energy than we consume or export," the official website of Gelephu Mindfulness City states. "Instead of letting this valuable resource go idle, we choose to convert some of the surplus into long-term national assets through responsible Bitcoin mining."
In August 2023, Singapore-based cryptocurrency miner Bitdeer completed a $500 million mining data center in the town of Gedu, capable of housing 30,000 mining machines. Bhutan, a landlocked Himalayan nation surrounded by China and India, is currently not a major data center hub.
