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Applied Digital Strikes $5 Billion AI Infrastructure Deal with U.S. Hyperscaler

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Applied Digital (APLD.O) announced on Wednesday that it has signed a $5 billion, 15-year lease agreement with a U.S.-based hyperscaler for 200 megawatts (MW) of capacity at its Polaris Forge 2 data center campus in North Dakota, solidifying its position as a major player in AI infrastructure development. The deal sent Applied Digital’s shares up 4% in premarket trading.

The agreement is expected to generate about $5 billion in contracted revenue over its term and reflects the surging demand for high-performance compute capacity driven by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence applications. Tech giants and AI developers are racing to secure energy-intensive infrastructure capable of training and deploying advanced language and vision models.

With this latest contract, Applied Digital’s total leased capacity across its Polaris Forge 1 and 2 campuses now reaches 600 MW, marking a significant milestone in its expansion strategy. The company also recently finalized a separate 150 MW lease with CoreWeave (CRWV.O) earlier this year, underscoring its growing role as a key infrastructure provider for the AI ecosystem.

Applied Digital’s stock has soared more than 325% in 2025, buoyed by investor enthusiasm for companies building AI-ready data centers capable of handling the computational load required by large language models and generative AI systems.

Industry analysts say the deal highlights how AI infrastructure has become the new frontier of big tech investment, with hyperscalers — massive cloud computing companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft — locking in long-term capacity agreements to meet explosive AI demand.

The company’s Polaris Forge complex in North Dakota is one of several U.S. projects focused on delivering high-density compute environments optimized for AI workloads. Applied Digital said the partnership will also support future energy efficiency improvements and renewable power integration, aligning with broader sustainability goals across the data center industry.

Meta Strikes $27 Billion Financing Deal With Blue Owl for Massive Louisiana AI Data Center

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Meta (META.O) has finalized a $27 billion financing partnership with Blue Owl Capital (OWL.N) to fund its largest data center project to date — a massive AI computing hub in Louisiana designed to supercharge the company’s artificial intelligence ambitions.

The agreement, Meta’s biggest-ever private capital deal, gives Blue Owl-managed funds a majority ownership stake in the joint venture, while Meta retains 20% equity. Blue Owl contributed about $7 billion in cash, and Meta will receive a $3 billion one-time payout, according to Tuesday’s announcement.

The planned Hyperion Data Center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, will deliver over 2 gigawatts of computing capacity, a figure that underscores the escalating global demand for infrastructure to train large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Blue Owl co-CEOs Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz called the project “an ambitious step toward powering the next generation of AI infrastructure.”

The move comes amid a historic wave of investment in AI-related data centers. According to Morgan Stanley, leading tech giants — including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and CoreWeave — are collectively set to spend $400 billion this year building AI infrastructure.

Meta CFO Susan Li described the partnership as “a bold step forward,” noting that the project will create more than 500 jobs and help the company diversify its financing strategy while reducing exposure to debt.

Industry analysts say the deal enables Meta to offload capital risk while maintaining operational control of a strategic AI asset. “It allows Meta to finance expansion without taking on heavy debt — a smart hedge if the AI market overheats,” said Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester.

The Hyperion facility is expected to go online within four years, with Meta holding lease options to extend. Once operational, it will stand among the largest data centers in the world, symbolizing the scale of investment driving the AI revolution.

Anthropic, Google Discuss Cloud Deal Worth Tens of Billions, Bloomberg Reports

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Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude chatbot, is in advanced discussions with Google (GOOGL.O) over a massive cloud computing deal valued in the high tens of billions of dollars, according to Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the talks. The agreement, which is not yet finalized, would see Google provide cloud infrastructure and computing power to support Anthropic’s fast-growing AI operations.

The potential deal underscores the increasing cost and scale of AI development, as companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Microsoft-backed Mistral race to secure computing resources needed to train and deploy large language models.

Alphabet shares rose 2.3% after hours following the report, reflecting investor optimism over Google Cloud’s role as a major infrastructure provider for next-generation AI systems. Google declined to comment, while Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Anthropic, which counts Google and Amazon (AMZN.O) among its biggest investors, has seen rapid adoption of its enterprise AI products and is reportedly on track to reach a $9 billion annual revenue run rate by the end of 2025, nearly tripling its current pace, according to a Reuters report last week.

The collaboration could deepen Google’s long-standing relationship with Anthropic, which already relies heavily on Google Cloud for model training. If completed, the deal would be among the largest cloud infrastructure partnerships ever in the AI sector, solidifying both firms’ positions in the escalating competition against OpenAI and Microsoft.