Hardhat uses the compilation output to generate an artifact for each contract. By default this artifact has things like the contract name the ABI, the bytecode, and so on.
You can customize the output by overriding a subtask. Check the hardhat.config.js file to see how to do this. Notice that you might need to configure the outputSelection of the compiler. Check this to learn more.
Run hh compile --force and check ./artifacts/contracts/Example.sol/Example.json to see the generated artifact.