Applied Digital (APLD +5.05%) finished the trading week on quite a high note. The artificial intelligence (AI) data center developer published an update on one of its facilities, and investors obviously found the news very encouraging. They traded the stock up by more than 5% on Friday.
Forging more AI compute
Before market open, Applied issued a press release announcing that it has reached ready-for-service (RFS) status for the second phase of building 2 at Polaris Forge 1, a data center it's building out in North Dakota. RFS is an industry term meaning that the construction, diagnostic, and power setups for an asset have been completed, and said asset is operational.
Image source: Getty Images.
Applied said that this completes the building's full 150 megawatts of critical IT load. It also raises the fully operational critical IT load at the Polaris Forge 1 complex to 250 megawatts. Ultimately, when fully completed, the campus -- which is 100% leased -- is expected to deliver 400 megawatts.
In the press release, Applied quoted CEO Wes Cummins as saying that this development "further demonstrates our ability to turn large-scale power into operational AI infrastructure."
NASDAQ: APLD
Key Data Points
Caterpillar to butterfly
Before it started to push hard into data center build-outs and operations, Applied was one of numerous cryptocurrency miners pivoting into AI and advanced computing infrastructure. To my mind, it's one of the more successful, with an impressive set of assets. The Polaris Forge 1 news is indicative of the progress it continues to make, and of its position ahead of peer companies undergoing the same business transformation.
