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Aug 04, 2023

Interior Health chooses Hut 8 for colocation HPC services

Healthcare provider will use Hut 8's infrastructure for the next five years High-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure provider and crypto firm Hut 8 has signed an agreement with Canadian

Healthcare provider will use Hut 8's infrastructure for the next five years

High-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure provider and crypto firm Hut 8 has signed an agreement with Canadian healthcare company Interior Health.

The agreement will see Interior Health using Hut 8’s HPC colocation services from its 6MW Kelowna data center in British Columbia, Canada, until 2028.

"We've been investing in our high-performance computing business, as well as in our customers, and are proud to expand our services further into the health sector," said Josh Rayner, VP of High-Performance Computing at Hut 8. "We are honored to have been chosen as Interior Health's trusted high-performance computing infrastructure provider."

Interior Health is a health authority that delivers public health, hospital care, community-based, and primary healthcare services across British Columbia, for over 843,000 people.

"We look forward to partnering with Hut 8 as our new hosting facility and infrastructure provider," said Mark Braidwood, executive director of technology at Interior Health. "In an increasingly interconnected world, businesses are demanding more reliable, secure, and scalable hosting options to ensure optimal performance and uninterrupted operations."

Hut 8 operates five data centers in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada. From these facilities, the company provides colocation, public and private cloud, and managed services for the government, private sector, and charities/non-profit organizations.

The company entered the colocation business last year after acquiring the data center business of Canadian IT & network company TeraGo for C$30 million (US$24m). The 30,000 sq ft (2,790 sqm) data center in Kelowna was taken over by Hut 8 as part of the TeraGo purchase; TeraGo took over the site in 2015 as part of its acquisition of local cloud service provider RackForce.

As well as providing data center and HPC services, Hut 8 is a cryptocurrency mining service. Earlier this year, the company announced a merger with US Bitcoin, giving both companies access to 825MW of gross energy across six sites.

The company has been facing some power difficulties this month, with Hut 8 saying earlier this week that it was struggling to complete its repairs at its Drumheller Alberta data center due to power surges. The difficulties experienced have brought the hash rate down to just 15 percent of the original levels.