Applied Digital Signs $7.5 Billion AI Data Center Lease, Soars Over 10% Premarket

North American digital infrastructure company Applied Digitalannounced, that it has reached a long-term lease agreement with the same U.S. high investment-grade hyper-scale data center operator that previously signed an agreement on the Delta Forge 1 project.

The new project, Polaris Forge 3, located in a northern state of the United States, will provide 300 megawatts (MW) of critical IT load, primarily serving large-scale AI training and high-performance computing (HPC) needs.

The total contract value of the lease agreement is approximately $7.5 billion, with an initial term of 15 years, under a take-or-pay model. If all renewal options are included, the potential total value of the agreement could reach approximately $18.2 billion.

Following the announcement, the company's stock price rose by 10% in pre-market trading on Thursday.

This transaction pushes Applied Digital's contracted capacity beyond 1GW. The company's current four AI factory parks have a combined critical IT load of 1200MW, corresponding to approximately 1670MW of interconnected public utility power. Post-contract, its total contracted lease revenue increases to $31 billion; if all renewal options are exercised, potential total revenue could reach $73 billion, with approximately 65% supported by U.S. investment-grade hyper-scale customers.

The company's CEO, Wes Cummins, stated in the announcement that Polaris Forge 3 is a direct extension of the company's proven model, and the second 300MW lease reflects the customer's trust in their execution capabilities.

“Polaris Forge 3 is a direct extension of our proven, effective model: a standardized, repeatable AI factory model that provides large-scale computing power for the world's most demanding computing customers.”