Overview
Applied Digital is a Nasdaq-listed data center developer (ticker APLD) that started as a Bitcoin-hosting operator and pivoted, from 2023 on, into building large HPC and AI campuses on the Northern Plains. Its flagship site, Polaris Forge 1 in Ellendale, North Dakota (originally the "Ellendale HPC" project), is the anchor of a 15-year lease with CoreWeave; the first 100 MW building was fully energized in November 2025 and a second building came online July 2026.
The company is one of the very few pure-play AI-factory landlords at gigawatt scale outside the traditional colocation majors.\n\nIn late 2025 Applied Digital reorganized around the landlord model. It signed a roughly $5 billion, multi-hundred-megawatt AI-factory lease with an unnamed US investment-grade hyperscaler at Polaris Forge 2, crossed 1 GW of contracted capacity at Polaris Forge 3 by May 2026, and in June 2026 opened a fifth campus with a 210 MW lease at Delta Forge 2.
At the same time it separated its GPU cloud business into a standalone company, ChronoScale, via a combination with EKSO announced in December 2025, so that the parent no longer sells GPU hours and does not disclose an operator-owned GPU fleet or hourly pricing.\n\nWhat makes Applied Digital distinctive versus the rest of the neocloud pack is that it competes on the physical layer rather than the compute layer. It sits closer to QTS, Vantage or DataBank than to CoreWeave or Nebius: hyperscaler-grade liquid-cooled shells, financed with senior secured notes (a $2.35 billion issue in November 2025 and a $1.59 billion issue in June 2026) and Macquarie development loans, and leased to a single anchor tenant per building on long dated terms.
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
Key facts
Axis classification
Exchange & ticker
Positioning
Anchor tenant
Second hyperscaler lease
Contracted capacity milestone
Fifth campus
Cloud business spin-out
Recent debt financing
Macquarie relationship
GPU fleet & hourly pricing
Polaris Forge 1 +75 MW RFS; campus 250 MW operational / 400 MW contracted (company-stated, Oct 2026)
Data & sources
Press releases
4
Web sources
2
6 sources backing this record.View all →
Current leadership (5)
- Wes Cummins Chairman & CEO, CEO, Founderreported, not verified
- Jason Zhang President & Co-Founder, Founderreported, not verified
- Saidal Mohmand Chief Financial Officerreported, not verified
- Laura Laltrello Chief Operating Officerreported, not verified
- Todd Gale Chief Development Officerreported, not verified
Founders (3)
- Wes Cumminsno longer at company
previously at Applied Digital Corporation
later founded Applied Digital Corporation
- Wes Cumminsno longer at company
previously at Applied Digital Corporation
later founded Applied Digital Corporation
- Jason Zhangno longer at company
Safety record
No incidents on record for Applied Digital.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Applied Digital on the data-center map
Every verified data center Applied Digital operates that has a mapped coordinate (19 total). Filled circles are Tier-2 facilities and Tier-1 campuses under this operator; click any pin to open its record.
Applied Digital data centers (19)
- Delta Forge 1Boyce · under construction
- Delta Forge 2Brookwood · announced
- Garden City Data CenterGarden City · energized
- Jamestown HPC CampusJamestown · announced
- Polaris Forge 1Ellendale · partially energized
- Polaris Forge 2Harwood · under construction
- Rockdale Data CenterRockdale, Texas, USA · energized
- Applied Digital Brookwood Data Center (APLD BHM-01)Brookwood · planned
- Applied Digital Oliver County AI FactoryCenter · planned
- Applied Digital Polaris Forge 1Ellendale · 400 MW
- Applied Digital Delta Forge 1Boyce · 300 MW
- Delta Forge 1 AI Factory CampusBoyce · 300 MW
- Applied Digital Ellendale Campus (Polaris Forge 1)Ellendale · 250 MW
- Applied Digital Ellendale HostingEllendale · 250 MW
- Ellendale Data Center (ELN-01)Ellendale · 250 MW
- Applied Digital Polaris Forge 2Harwood · 200 MW
- Applied Digital JamestownJamestown · 106 MW
- Jamestown Data Center (JMS01)Jamestown · 106 MW
- Applied Digital Jamestown FacilityJamestown · 100 MW
AI data centers Applied Digital operates or is a party to, from the DEPLOY data center registry.
Recent coverage
Applied Digital in third-party press
Financial state
- Reporting basis
- aggregator_estimate
- Lifecycle stage
- early
- Counterparty risk class
- unknown
Each numeric field carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Record createdAug 18, 2026
Added to the verified registry
Sources (6)
- https://ir.applieddigital.com/news-events/press-releases
- https://ir.applieddigital.com/news-events/press-releases?year=2025
- https://ir.applieddigital.com/news-events/press-releases?year=2024
- https://www.applieddigital.com/leadership/
- https://www.applieddigital.com/about/
- https://ir.applieddigital.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/161/applied-digital-brings-an-additional-75-mw-of-ai · 2026-10-02
Common questions
What is Applied Digital?
What does Applied Digital make?
Is Applied Digital publicly traded?
Who is the CEO of Applied Digital?
How can I invest in Applied Digital?
Where is Applied Digital headquartered?
Who owns Applied Digital?
Is Applied Digital a top robotics company?
When was Applied Digital founded?
Is Applied Digital safe?
Methodology: Verified · 6 sources (4 primary) · last reviewed 2026-10-02
Verification posture
Verified
High confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-10-02
Sources by quality tier
- 4
- primary-company-ir
- Company IR disclosure
- 2
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Applied Digital.In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Applied Digital from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
APLD’s 250MW Question: The Deal That Could Unlock Applied Digital Stock’s Next Leg Up
Applied Digital (APLD) — Potential Rebound Toward $40 (+47%)
Applied Digital has been in a strong corrective phase after reaching the $50–51 area. The stock recently dropped toward the $23–25 support zone, where buyers stepped in and…
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/applied-digital.md
- RSS feed: /companies/applied-digital/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/67278635-e1c4-464f-8e6c-8efedbee2c2c
- Revision history: /companies/applied-digital/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Heat Index
Serious50/100
A composite of competitive footprint, funding, press velocity, active partnerships, and supply-chain edges. Different from the Intelligence score below (which is per-form-factor productization). Non-robotics companies cap at 25.
Reality vs attention
Not enough verified signal yet to place Applied Digital against peers. Reality and attention percentiles publish once the underlying record clears its data floor.
6-month trend
Analysis
Limited public funding data for capital position assessment.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Oct 2, 2026