Applied Digital Tops 1 GW as AI Factory Campus Locks $7.5B Hyperscaler Lease – Bitcoin News
Key Takeaways
Applied Digital signs a 15-year, $7.5B lease at Polaris Forge 3, pushing total contracted revenue to $31B.APLD now holds 1,200 MW of contracted AI capacity across 4 campuses, with 65% backed by investment-grade hyperscalers.Polaris Forge 3 is set to begin operations in August 2027, with APLD actively marketing 1.7 GW of additional power.
Applied Digital Pushes Total Contracted Revenue to $31B With Fourth AI Campus Deal
Applied Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: APLD), the Dallas-based artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure provider, bitcoin miner and data center developer, announced the agreement May 20, 2026. The deal covers 300 megawatts of critical IT load at Polaris Forge 3, a campus located in a northern state and supported by approximately 430 MW of grid-connected utility power.
The lease carries a base-term value of approximately $7.5 billion and up to $18.2 billion if all renewal options are exercised.
The release details that the agreement brings Applied Digital‘s total contracted lease revenue to $31 billion across four AI Factory campuses, or $73 billion including all renewal options. Total contracted critical IT load now stands at 1,200 MW net, with approximately 1,670 MW of gross utility power. About 65% of that contracted revenue is backed by U.S.-based investment-grade hyperscalers.
Wes Cummins, chairman and chief executive officer of Applied Digital, called the deal a continuation of a proven framework. “This second 300 MW lease with the same U.S.-based high investment-grade hyperscaler we partnered with at Delta Forge 1 reflects the confidence we’ve built through disciplined execution and our ability to consistently advance large-scale AI infrastructure projects,” Cummins explained.
The company has executed leases representing 1.2 GW of capacity in 11 months. Cummins added that Applied Digital is actively marketing more than 1.7 GW of additional grid-connected utility power across recently added and existing sites.
Polaris Forge 3 covers more than 600 acres and is engineered for high-density AI workloads. The campus uses Applied Digital’s proprietary waterless cooling technology, high-density power delivery, and advanced liquid-cooling architecture. Operations are expected to begin in August 2027.
The campus follows the same AI Factory model applied at Polaris Forge 1, Polaris Forge 2, and Delta Forge 1. Applied Digital describes the model as repeatable and purpose-built to support large-scale AI training and inference infrastructure at the compute densities demanded by next-generation systems.
Applied Digital is one of many bitcoin mining operators that has transitioned to mostly AI infrastructure products and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Over the last five days, APLD shares have risen 6.8% and year-to-date, the stock is up more than 85%.
