Applied Digital shares have rallied more than 236% this year, driven by accelerating demand for AI infrastructure. In June, Roth MKM analyst Darren Aftahi raised his target to fifty-six dollars and reiterated a buy rating, citing strong visibility into long-term contracts. This upgrade underscores bullish sentiment around Applied Digital’s positioning as a leading AI-focused data center developer.

The company has fully contracted 400 megawatts at its Polaris Forge 1 campus in Ellendale, North Dakota, under a fifteen-year lease with CoreWeave valued at approximately eleven billion dollars. A second campus, Polaris Forge 2, is set to begin service in late 2026 and reach full operations in 2027 under a two hundred-megawatt, fifteen-year lease worth around five billion dollars to a U.S. hyperscaler. Management plans to expand Polaris Forge 1 to over one gigawatt by 2030 once additional power capacity comes online.

In November, Applied Digital brought its first 100-megawatt building at Polaris Forge 1 online, marking a shift from construction to recurring revenue generation. Once fully ramped, the CoreWeave lease is expected to contribute roughly half a billion dollars in annual net operating income. With both campuses in service and planned expansions, the company aims to achieve a one-billion-dollar NOI run rate within five years.

Late-December trading saw Applied Digital dip by around 6.5% on reports of a brief power outage at its Ellendale campus. Volume was notably lower than the recent average, suggesting a headline-driven reaction rather than a shift in underlying fundamentals. Despite this pullback, management’s long-term growth outlook and robust contract backlog underpin continued investor interest.