Applied Digital brings another 75 MW of AI capacity online in North Dakota

Applied Digital said Friday it brought an additional 75 megawatts of critical IT load online at Polaris Forge 1 in Ellendale, North Dakota, completing Building 2 at 150 MW and lifting the leased AI Factory campus to 250 MW operational toward a 400 MW buildout.

AI demand is measured in megawatts now, not just model releases. Applied Digital turning another 75 MW live at a leased North Dakota campus — to 250 MW operational on the way to 400 — is the unglamorous half of the AI boom: power that actually becomes usable compute.

On Friday, 2 October 2026, Applied Digital said three more data halls at its Polaris Forge 1 campus are ready to use. The GlobeNewswire page is titled “Applied Digital Brings an Additional 75 MW of AI Infrastructure Online at Polaris Forge 1.” The page stamps October 02, 2026, 08:00 ET, which is 8:00 a.m. Eastern. The dateline is Dallas. The source line is Applied Digital Corporation. The shares trade as APLD on the Nasdaq. A megawatt, shortened to MW, is a million watts of electrical power. Critical IT load is the power the computers themselves can draw, separate from the power that runs cooling and lights. Ready for Service is the company’s name for the moment a hall is finished enough to hand over. Those lines are the wire’s.

What Friday’s halls add. The company said it reached Ready for Service on the second phase of Building 2, delivering an additional 75 megawatts of critical IT load across three data halls of 25 megawatts each. Three times 25 is 75. That multiplication is arithmetic on the sizes the release prints. The release does not print a count of computers inside the halls.

What that does to the building and the campus. The milestone completes Building 2 at its full 150 megawatts of critical IT load. Two phases of 75 megawatts each are 150. The release says this delivery follows the first 100 megawatt building at Polaris Forge 1 and the first 75 megawatt phase of Building 2. Add those earlier pieces, 100 plus 75, and the campus stood at 175 megawatts before Friday. Add Friday’s 75 and the total is 250. That sum is arithmetic on the figures in the release. The release itself states the result: fully operational critical IT load at Polaris Forge 1 is now 250 megawatts.

What is leased, and what is running. The release says the AI Factory Campus is fully leased, and that it is contracted to deliver 400 megawatts of critical IT load at full buildout. An AI Factory, in the company’s language, is a campus built to turn electrical power into computing for artificial intelligence. Fully leased means the company says the planned capacity already has a customer under contract. Contracted is a promise to deliver. It is not the same as switched on. Two hundred fifty megawatts is what the release says is operational. Four hundred is the size of the contract when the buildout is finished. Subtract 250 from 400 and 150 megawatts of that contract are still ahead of what the company says is running. The release does not say those remaining megawatts are already online, and it does not name the customer.

Where the campus is. Polaris Forge 1 is in Ellendale, North Dakota. The release says Applied Digital has operated there since 2021, and that it has built relationships with local leaders, partners, and people in the community. As the campus grows, the company says it is focused on responsible development and on lasting value in the places where it builds. Those lines are the release’s.

What the chief executive said the milestone shows. Wes Cummins, chairman and chief executive, said bringing another 75 megawatts of AI infrastructure online at Polaris Forge 1 shows the company can turn large-scale power into operational AI infrastructure. “Securing power is only the starting point,” he said. “The real work is designing, building, commissioning, and operating the infrastructure that transforms those megawatts into usable capacity for customers.” Commissioning is the work of testing a hall and bringing it into service. Usable capacity means a customer can run computers on that power, not only that the company has reserved the electricity. That quotation is his, in the release. The release does not put a dollar figure or a customer name next to it.

Who the about box says the company is. Applied Digital says it designs, builds, and operates data centers for artificial intelligence, cloud, networking, and blockchain work, and that it also sells colocation. Colocation is space and power a customer rents inside a data center. The about box says the company was named Best Data Center in the Americas 2025 by Datacloud. That naming is the about box’s claim. The page does not print the award’s criteria. Headquarters are in Dallas, and the company was founded in 2021. The about box says the company combines experience with very large data centers, closed-loop cooling, and fast deployment. Closed-loop cooling recirculates the coolant instead of using it once and sending it away. The company site, read the same day, calls the cooling waterless. Both phrases are the company’s. Friday’s release does not describe the cooling on the three new halls. The about box also says the company creates work in local communities through what it calls an AI Factory franchise model. The release does not spell out those franchise terms. Media inquiries go to JSA, Jaymie Scotto & Associates, at jsa_applied@jsa.net. Investor questions go to Matt Glover or Ralf Esper at Gateway Group, APLD@gateway-grp.com.

The company homepage, read the same day, still prints 175 megawatts as live critical IT capacity, and 1.4 gigawatts under contract. A gigawatt is a thousand megawatts, so 1.4 gigawatts is 1,400 megawatts. Those figures sit under a block titled Capacity Ready to Scale. They are the homepage’s numbers. They are not a restatement of Friday’s campus line. The release is the page that puts Polaris Forge 1 at 250 megawatts operational, contracted to 400 at full buildout. The homepage does not say the 175 megawatt line has been updated for Friday’s halls, and it does not name a customer beside it.

The picture is an aerial photograph of the campus, with a caption panel on the left. Long, low buildings with dark roofs sit in rows on flat ground. White cooling units line the roofs. A parking lot with cars sits beside the buildings, and open land runs to the horizon. A slate panel on the left carries amber type: “+75 MW,” “NOW ONLINE,” “POLARIS FORGE 1,” “250 MW OPERATIONAL,” and “BUILDING 2 COMPLETE.” The frame does not print a calendar date. It does not name a customer, and it is not a photograph of a lease.

In plain terms, Applied Digital said on Friday, from Dallas, that three more halls at Polaris Forge 1 in Ellendale, North Dakota, are ready, adding 75 megawatts and finishing Building 2 at 150. The campus is now at 250 megawatts operational. The company says the campus is fully leased and contracted for 400 megawatts when the buildout is done. It does not name the customer, and it does not say the full 400 megawatts are already running.