April 23 (Reuters) - Applied Digital has signed a long-term lease worth $7.5 billion with an unnamed U.S.-based hyperscaler at its new Delta Forge 1 site, it said on Thursday, strengthening its position as a data center provider for artificial intelligence workloads.
Shares of the company jumped more than 12% in early trading following the announcement.
The 15-year lease covers 300 megawatts of computing capacity at the 430‑megawatt Delta Forge 1 site in southern U.S., the company said.
The deal makes the customer Applied Digital's second U.S.-based investment‑grade hyperscale tenant across its data center sites and lifts total contracted lease revenue to more than $23 billion.
The agreement comes as demand for data centers continues to climb, with major technology companies including Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle — collectively called hyperscalers — investing billions of dollars to secure facilities with enough computing power and cooling to support AI systems.
More than half of Applied Digital's contracted revenue is now backed by investment-grade customers, the company said.
Applied Digital builds and operates large data centers designed to support AI, cloud computing and other data‑intensive workloads, placing it among companies benefiting from the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.
Separately, Applied Digital said it expects to secure up to $600 million in financing, including a $300 million senior secured bridge facility for development at its Polaris Forge 1 campus and an up to $300 million revolving credit facility to fund broader development and working capital needs.
Delta Forge 1 is the company's newest campus, spanning more than 500 acres and built to handle large‑scale AI operations.
The site is designed with high‑capacity power and cooling systems, and initial operations are expected to begin in mid‑2027.
(Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
