From Mining to Leasing: Keel Infrastructure’s Bet That Power Scarcity Will Pay Off
Published on 06/23/2026 at 17:35 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The conversation in AI investment circles tends to fixate on chips, models, and training runs. Lately, a quieter but more consequential debate has been unfolding in zoning offices and utility boardrooms: who controls the megawatts. Keel Infrastructure, the company formerly known as Bitfarms, is betting its future on the answer being itself.
The pivot is stark. On April 1, 2026, the Bitcoin miner officially shed its old identity, relocating its legal domicile from Canada to Delaware and rebranding to reflect a new mission: developing and owning digital and energy infrastructure for compute-intensive workloads across North America. This was no mere marketing exercise. The management team, led by CEO Ben Gagnon, had spent months extricating the company from the volatility of cryptocurrency cycles and into what it sees as the far more predictable economics of AI-driven data centre demand.
The internal chaos that preceded the shift was fierce. A bitter proxy battle with Riot Platforms had paralysed the firm. Only after a peace deal restored boardroom stability could the transformation proceed. That stability paid an early dividend: at the end of June, Keel’s shares will be added to the Russell 3000 Index, a milestone that forces passive funds to buy the stock and raises its profile among institutional investors.
The asset that underpins the entire thesis is something no software update or fabrication plant can conjure: grid-connected power capacity, already permitted and live. Keel owns a pipeline of 2.2 gigawatts across sites in Pennsylvania, Washington State, and Québec. These locations were not chosen at random. Pennsylvania has deep industrial grid infrastructure; Washington offers abundant hydropower; Québec sits on some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in North America. The company already sold its 70-MW Paso Pe facility in Paraguay, leaving its portfolio entirely North American and removing the emerging-market risk.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Keel?
Keel’s business model is to build what it calls “powered shells” — ready-to-lease sites with secured electricity connections — and then market them to hyperscalers and neocloud operators. The logic is that power scarcity gives Keel the negotiating upper hand. Secure the electrons first, sign the lease from a position of strength. The company is not buying GPUs itself; it is a landlord, not an operator, which limits margin erosion from hardware cycles and provides more predictable rental income.
But the narrative is ahead of the revenue. On the Q1 2026 earnings call, Gagnon outlined a target of closing three major leases by the end of 2026 — one each at the Panther Creek, Sharon, and Moses Lake campuses. Zoning approvals are already in hand for all three sites. Yet the critical milestones — notices to proceed, signed contracts, and groundbreakings — remain outstanding. Gagnon has described 2026 as the “year of execution” and 2027 as the “year of delivery.” Moses Lake, in Washington, is expected to be the first to go live, likely in the first half of 2027, with the other two following in the second half. The company is staying tight-lipped on more precise timelines until contracts are signed.
Investors buying Keel today are effectively buying optionality on those grid connections. The current profit-and-loss statement is deep in the red and will remain so throughout the transition. The wager rests on two assumptions: that power scarcity for AI data centres persists, and that hyperscalers and neoclouds are willing to pay for co-location capacity rather than build their own. If large customers decide to self-build, or if regulation eases grid constraints, the demand for Keel’s powered shells could evaporate.
Keel at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
A recent hiccup illustrated how raw the transition still feels. A case of mistaken identity briefly rattled the stock, as some observers wrongly linked Keel to a government defence contract. The company quickly clarified that its focus is purely on commercial data centres. That kind of confusion is unlikely to help while the firm is still working to establish its new brand.
The most important near-term catalyst is the conversion of hyperscaler interest into ink on paper. If Gagnon can secure leases at Panther Creek, Sharon, and Moses Lake by year-end, the thesis will face its first genuine stress test. For now, Keel sits on a trove of permitted megawatts and a market that is hungry for exactly that. Delivering the kilowatts is the easy part. Delivering the tenants is the only thing that matters.
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