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Data center campus

Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)

Polaris Forge 2 is an AI data center campus developed by Applied Digital in North Dakota, Harwood. 0.28 GW of capacity has been announced; none is energized yet. The gap is what this page tracks: what is claimed versus what is actually built, each figure dated and sourced.

Under construction · Applied Digital · greenfield · MISO · Harwood, North Dakota, United States

Track Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)

Capacity: announced vs energized

Energized
not recorded

Announced-to-energized gap: 0.28 GW. Every figure below is a single dated, sourced claim. Current best per series resolves by evidence tier, then date. See the methodology.

78th-largest announced of 102 tracked campuses27th percentile announced-to-energized gap≈ 227,000 homes of power at full announced capacity (basis)

Promised online: 2027. 15 months away. Claimed by Applied Digital (source).

Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) capacity claims
Source
Announced0.28 GW2025-08-18claimedpress release
Contracted0.20 GW2025-09-01claimedpress release
Under construction0.28 GW2026-05-31verifiedsec filing

Key facts

under construction

Lifecycle

0.28 GW

Announced

0 GW

Energized

Applied Digital

Developer

United States

Location

MISO

Grid

greenfield

Land

1

Facilities tracked

Reported facts

Structured facts sourced from citations already on this record. Each fact traces to a source in the References section below.

Campus scale (announced)
Polaris Forge 2 near Harwood, North Dakota on more than 900 acres; campus designed for future expansion to 1 GW critical IT (Applied Digital IR, Oct 22 2025)
Initial lease
~$5B contracted revenue over an estimated 15-year term for 200 MW of critical IT load to an unnamed U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler (Applied Digital IR)
Expansion option
Hyperscaler holds first right of refusal on an additional 800 MW (full expansion potential of the 1 GW campus) (Applied Digital IR)
Phasing (targeted)
Initial 200 MW in two buildings expected to begin coming online in 2026 and reach 200 MW in 2027 (Applied Digital IR)
Efficiency targets (claimed)
Projected PUE of 1.18 and near-zero water consumption per company materials (Applied Digital IR)
ND leased capacity context
With this lease, Applied Digital says total leased capacity with two hyperscalers across Polaris Forge 1 and 2 in North Dakota reached 600 MW (Applied Digital IR)

On the data center map

Every tracked data center is on this map, centered on Polaris Forge 2. Pan or zoom out to see how close rivals are building.

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The story of Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)
Announced capex
$3B
Jobs
200 permanent reported
Derived
Cost per MW
$11M/MW
Cost per job
$15M per permanent job

Every figure is one row in the ledger below with its source. Derived rows are pure arithmetic on the rows above (not new claims). Absent lines mean the fact isn't on record yet.

In clusterNorth Dakota(24)

The deal

offtaker
Undisclosed U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler · 200 MW leased; ROFR on 800 MW
utility
Minnkota Power Cooperative (MISO)
financier
Macquarie Asset Management · Perpetual-preferred financing draws
developer
Applied Digital · NASDAQ: APLD
utility
Cass County Electric Cooperative · Co-serving power to the campus alongside Minnkota Power Cooperative.

Power

Power source
grid
Grid operator
MISO
Interconnection
Water
Applied Digital proprietary closed-loop / waterless cooling design.

Harwood substation and high-voltage line (Minnkota Power), 0.28 GW grid interconnect, Under construction. ~$75M in upgrades funded by APLD, owned/operated by Minnkota Power Cooperative

The MISO grid demand right now: 83.6 GW (EIA-930, 2026-10-02 21:00). Polaris Forge 2's announced 0.28 GW would be 0.3% of the grid's current load.

County water status: Extreme drought (D3) in Clay County, week of 2026-09-22 (US Drought Monitor). Data centers are large water users for cooling; this is the neutral local water picture.

Why here

Polaris Forge 2 sits on greenfield in North Dakota, Harwood. It connects to the MISO grid, draws on grid power. This siting summary is composed from the record's held fields, not speculation; see methodology.

Financial structure

Polaris Forge 2 total project investment
$3B. Announced total investment for the 280 MW Harwood AI campus. press release

Regulatory paper trail

The filings and rules on record for this site and its jurisdiction, most recent first. Each is a sourced, dated artifact you can follow to the primary document.

NHTSA Recall: Zoox Robotaxi Software Update for Heavy Smoke Visibility (26E044)operational restriction · 2026-07-15 · United States
FCC Proposed Fines Against Drone Companies (July 2026)other · 2026-07-10 · United States

Investment, workforce and specs

Permanent jobs
More than 200 full-time employees plus long-term contractors source

Facilities at this campus

Timeline

  2. Aug 2026
    party added
    utility: Cass County Electric Cooperative
  3. Oct 2026
    Current: Under construction

Sources

76e69d68-aa5f-4f30-bb67-e5e3acf391d4 · Tracked with DEPLOY's verified-vs-claimed methodology. Every term is defined in the glossary. Announced numbers are claims, not built capacity.

Head-to-head

Polaris Forge 2 vs Polaris Forge 1 →Polaris Forge 2 vs Jamestown HPC Campus →Polaris Forge 2 vs Rockdale Data Center →Polaris Forge 2 vs Garden City Data Center →Polaris Forge 2 vs Delta Forge 1 →

Common questions

What is Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)?
Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) is an AI data center campus tracked on the DEPLOY registry, located in Harwood. DEPLOY records its capacity as a dated, sourced ledger: announced gigawatts versus actually energized gigawatts, never a press-release total.
How much power will Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) use?
Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) has 0.28 GW of announced capacity on the DEPLOY registry; no energized capacity is yet recorded. Each figure is individually dated and sourced.
Who is building Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)?
Applied Digital is recorded as a party to Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) on the DEPLOY registry. The full party list, with each role, is on the record.
Is Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) operating yet?
As of the most recent verification on the DEPLOY registry, Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) is under construction. DEPLOY tracks the lifecycle from announced through energized, so the current state reflects sourced evidence, not the original announcement.
How verified is the data on Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood)?
A human editor has reviewed this record for the indexed registry. Every capacity figure is an append-only, dated claim resolved to the highest-evidence tier; superseded claims are kept but excluded from the current view.

Deploy Watch

Track Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood) on Deploy.

We notify you when energized capacity, lifecycle state, or a new dated capacity claim changes against primary-source evidence, not when the developer issues a press release.

Cite this page

DEPLOY. (2026). Polaris Forge 2 (Harwood): AI data center campus record. Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://registry.deploy.report/datacenters/applied-digital-harwood-north-dakota

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CC BY 4.0

The verified data on this page is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license: reuse the facts freely, with attribution to DEPLOY (deploy.report). The prose, design, and any imagery are not included and keep their own rights.

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