Pranav Hotkar
Dallas, Texas, United States - April 23, 2026 - Applied Digital has signed a long-term lease agreement with a new U.S.-based investment-grade hyperscaler at its Delta Forge 1 campus, advancing the company’s push into large-scale AI data center infrastructure.
The agreement is valued at approximately USD 7.5 billion over a 15-year term and covers 300 megawatts (MW) of critical IT load. The capacity is purpose-built to support artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads within the company’s next-generation data center environment.
The Delta Forge 1 campus, designed as a 430 MW “AI Factory,” represents one of Applied Digital’s flagship developments. Spanning more than 500 acres, the facility is engineered to deliver high-density power and advanced cooling systems required for large-scale AI operations.
With this latest lease, the hyperscaler becomes the company’s second U.S.-based investment-grade customer across its AI data center portfolio. The deal increases Applied Digital’s total contracted revenue to more than USD 23 billion, with over half now backed by investment-grade clients, reflecting growing institutional demand for AI-ready infrastructure.
Company leadership emphasized that the agreement strengthens revenue visibility while diversifying its customer base. The expansion also reinforces the company’s “AI Factory” model, which focuses on delivering scalable, high-performance data center capacity tailored for both AI training and inference workloads.
Initial operations at the Delta Forge 1 campus are expected to begin in mid-2027, with infrastructure designed to support sustained, high-density computing performance.
The announcement highlights the accelerating demand for hyperscale data centers as global technology companies expand their AI capabilities. Securing long-term capacity through large lease agreements has become a key strategy for hyperscalers seeking reliable infrastructure to support compute-intensive applications.
Applied Digital’s continued investment in purpose-built AI campuses positions it among a growing group of operators focused on delivering specialized data center environments optimized for next-generation workloads. The company has been expanding aggressively across multiple sites, aligning its development pipeline with the rising demand for AI and cloud infrastructure.
The deal underscores a broader industry trend in which long-term hyperscaler commitments are driving the rapid expansion of data center capacity in the United States, particularly for facilities capable of supporting high-density AI operations.
