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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 to invest $1.5 billion in massive AI data center in Texas

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Meta Platforms announced plans to invest $1.5 billion in a new data center in El Paso, Texas, marking its 29th global facility and third in the state, as part of its ongoing expansion to support artificial intelligence workloads. The new site will be one of the largest in the U.S., capable of scaling to 1 gigawatt of power — enough to supply a city the size of San Francisco for a full day.

Expected to go online in 2028, the El Paso data center will create around 100 permanent jobs and employ more than 1,800 construction workers at peak development. Meta said it chose El Paso for its strong electrical grid, skilled workforce, and access to renewable energy.

The project is part of a broader race among tech giants to build infrastructure for AI. Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta together are projected to spend more than $360 billion in 2025 on cloud and AI infrastructure, most of it directed toward data centers.

Meta has already invested over $10 billion in Texas and employs more than 2,500 people statewide. The company said the new facility will be powered by 100% renewable energy and use a closed-loop, liquid-cooling system to recycle water continuously. It also pledged to restore twice the water consumed by the site to local watersheds, exceeding its 2030 sustainability goal of becoming “water-positive.”

Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, which helped facilitate the project, described Meta as “the fastest gazelle in the industry,” noting that the deal stemmed from discussions with Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office four years ago and was supported by a package of local tax incentives.