Business
Hut 8 Commits $16 Million to Expand Water Infrastructure in West Feliciana Parish
Investment expected to increase long-term system capacity alongside development of River Bend AI data center campusBATON ROUGE, La., May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/
About this update from Hut 8 Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"Investment expected to increase long-term system capacity alongside development of River Bend AI data center campusBATON ROUGE, La., May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq, TSX: HUT) (\"Hut 8\" or the \"Company\"), an energy infrastructure platform integrating power, digital infrastructure, and compute at scale to fuel next-generation, energy-intensive use cases, today announced an agreement with West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, to invest approximately $16 million to expand local water system capacity in connection with the development of its River Bend AI data center campus. The investment includes the construction of a new water well, approximately eight miles of water main, and other system enhancements, which will be transferred to the parish upon completion, expected in the second half of 2026, at no cost to taxpayers.\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \nThese improvements are expected to expand system capacity and reliability across West Feliciana Parish, with the potential to benefit more than 4,000 households and more than 200 employer establishments, based on U.S. Census Bureau data1. The investment aligns with broader efforts across Louisiana to strengthen water infrastructure, including the state's $750 million Water Sector Program, established to fund repairs and upgrades to community water systems. By expanding core system capacity through private investment, the project is also expected to help preserve public funding capacity for other infrastructure priorities across the parish.The River Bend campus is expected to deliver significant economic impact to the Capital Region. Phase 1 alone represents a multibillion-dollar capital investment, ranking among the largest planned private infrastructure projects in the state's history. At peak construction, Hut 8 anticipates approximately 1,000 construction workers on-site. Once operational, Phase 1 is expected to support at least 75 direct permanent jobs and approximately 193 indirect jobs, or 268 jobs in total.At River Bend, Hut 8 is expanding the local water system while designing its facilities to minimize demand on it. The campus will use a closed loop cooling system that significantly reduces ongoing water requirements and relies on water outside the residential aquifer, with no impact to the local water supply.Asher Genoot, Chief Executive Officer of Hut 8, said: \"We ...