Craig Tavares, President and COO of BUZZ High Performance Computing, said in an interview with Capacity published on 9 October 2026 that BUZZ will privately fund the electrical connection, transformer infrastructure, required grid expansions and a new fibre-optic backbone for its proposed AI campus in Oakville, Ontario.
The pledge covers the C$3.5 billion, 320 MW campus that BUZZ, a subsidiary of HIVE Digital Technologies, announced in May. It comes after Oakville Council passed a one-year Interim Control By-law on data centres on 11 August 2026, and the Town says no development application for a data centre has been submitted.
He said the campus would connect to the provincial transmission grid rather than Oakville’s local distribution system, with the transformer station on BUZZ’s own property. Capacity reports that the formal application will disclose expected electricity demand, connection phasing and grid impacts, and that he did not commit to publishing the grid connection agreement itself.
“We want residents to be able to check our commitments for themselves,” he told Capacity.
The proposed campus in figures from HIVE’s 18 May 2026 release: approximately 320 MW of utility capacity, about C$3.5 billion of capital investment, more than 100,000 GPUs at full build-out and a target online date in the second half of 2027. Oakville passed a one-year data-centre by-law on 11 August 2026.
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The key insight: As we read it, the interview and the Town’s documents describe two clocks on one site: HIVE’s release targets the second half of 2027 for a 320 MW campus, while Oakville’s Interim Control By-law, passed on 11 August 2026, runs for one year and can be extended to two. Tavares’s pledge to Capacity addresses who pays for the grid connection; the documents we read do not resolve the timing.
Water, Noise and Waste Heat
Capacity reports that projected water use and noise levels have not yet been published, with detailed engineering still under way. Tavares said closed-loop liquid cooling means the campus would not need a continuous supply of municipal water for cooling, and that the engineering package will quantify annual top-up water and any discharge.
He said BUZZ will set a noise target below municipal and provincial limits, with independent testing before and after the campus starts running, and that BUZZ has offered Council an independent technical expert, separate from its design team, to review its studies.
On waste heat, he told Capacity: “We don’t have a named waste heat partner today.” He said district energy and waste-heat recovery are among the options BUZZ is exploring.
The Moratorium in Oakville
The Town of Oakville says Council passed the Interim Control By-law at a Special Council meeting on 11 August 2026, to temporarily restrict development related to data centres, enterprise computing facilities and similar high-intensity digital processing facilities for one year.
The Town says Section 38 of the Planning Act lets a municipality extend such a by-law for a total of up to two years from enactment, to complete a land use planning study. Its release says the decision does not represent a permanent prohibition on data centres.
Mayor Rob Burton said in the Town’s release: “There is no application before us, and this by-law gives us a good base from which to move forward in our research.”
The Town’s Data Centres page says it is aware that land may be under consideration by a proponent for a data centre, but that no development application has been submitted and the statutory public planning process has not commenced.
What BUZZ Announced in May
HIVE’s release of 18 May 2026 describes a planned AI facility in the Greater Toronto Area with approximately 320 MW of utility capacity, designed to host more than 100,000 GPUs at full build-out. It lists a capital investment of about CAD $3.5 billion and a target online date in the second half of 2027.
The release says BUZZ acquired a main parcel of about 21 acres for $46 million and an adjacent parcel of about 4 acres for $12 million, which together form a site benefiting from a 320 MW power allocation. It lists 800+ construction jobs and hundreds of permanent roles.
HIVE President and CEO Aydin Kilic said in the release: “HIVE now has over 850 MW of power globally; this includes our 450 MW of operating data centers plus a pipeline of 400 MW of capacity, which we expect to bring online in 2027.”
The May release names the Greater Toronto Area, not Oakville; Capacity identifies the proposed campus as being in Oakville.
The Structural Read
Tavares said, as Capacity reports it, that BUZZ will pay for the electrical connection, transformer infrastructure, grid expansions and fibre, and that the campus would connect to the provincial transmission grid rather than Oakville’s local distribution system.
The Town’s release says the by-law gives it time to review its Official Plan policies and Zoning By-law regulations, covering noise, vibration, emissions, land use compatibility, energy supply and affordability, and water supply. Capacity reports that BUZZ has not yet published water or noise figures and that detailed engineering is under way.
As we read it, the figures the Town’s study will look at are the ones Tavares says the formal application will disclose: expected electricity demand, connection phasing and grid impacts. The Town’s page says no development application has been submitted.
Craig Tavares, President and COO, BUZZ HPC, as quoted by Capacity (9 October 2026)
“None of those costs will fall on municipal taxpayers or be recovered through a project-specific increase to residential electricity rates.”
Three Implications
OAKVILLE RESIDENTS AND RATEPAYERS Tavares says the grid connection, transformer infrastructure, grid expansions and fibre will be privately funded and not recovered through a project-specific increase to residential electricity rates.
THE TOWN OF OAKVILLE The Town says its by-law runs for one year, can be extended to a total of two under Section 38 of the Planning Act, and does not represent a permanent prohibition on data centres.
HIVE AND BUZZ HIVE’s release lists a target online date in the second half of 2027; Capacity writes that the by-law puts pressure on that target and that no formal application has been submitted.
The analysis puts it this way: “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, both sides of this story are about electrons: BUZZ’s pledge concerns who pays to connect a 320 MW campus to the provincial transmission grid, and the Town’s study lists energy supply and affordability among the issues it will review before deciding whether its planning framework should change.
The two land purchases in HIVE’s 18 May 2026 release: a main parcel of about 21 acres for $46 million and an adjacent parcel of about 4 acres for $12 million; the release does not state the currency.
What Is Not Established
As read on 11 October 2026: the documents we read do not give the campus’s expected electricity demand, water use or noise levels, a construction start date, a customer or tenant, or the currency of the land purchase prices. Capacity reports that no formal application has been submitted, and the Town’s page says the same.
Whether the target of the second half of 2027 can be met while the by-law is in force is not addressed in the Town’s documents; Capacity writes that the by-law puts pressure on that target.
Business Engineer Framework
The State of AI Data Centers
A Business Engineer analysis of the gigawatt-scale data center build-out and the grid capacity it depends on.
BUZZ HPC’s President and COO said in an interview with Capacity on 9 October 2026 that BUZZ will privately fund the grid connection, transformer infrastructure, grid expansions and fibre for its proposed C$3.5 billion, 320 MW AI campus in Oakville. The Town of Oakville passed a one-year Interim Control By-law on data centres on 11 August 2026 and says no application has been submitted.
A note on sourcing. We read HIVE’s 18 May 2026 release, the Town of Oakville’s 11 August 2026 release and its Data Centres page, and Capacity’s 9 October 2026 interview with Craig Tavares in full on 11 October 2026. Tavares’s statements are as Capacity reports them; every figure here comes from those documents, and no development application has been published. Nothing here is a forecast, and nothing here is financial or investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur, HackerNoon and Search Engine People. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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