Investment firm Macquarie is to invest billions of dollars into data center firm Applied Digital.

First reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the company, Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) is set to invest $5 billion into Applied, a cryptomining firm pivoting to AI and HPC data centers.

The equity financing facility, supported by investment vehicles of funds managed by Macquarie, will see the company take a 15 percent stake in Applied subsidiary, APLD HPC Holdings LLC.

Under the deal, MAM will invest up to $900 million in Applied's Ellendale campus in development in North Dakota, and has the right of first refusal to invest an additional $4.1 billion in future data centers for 30 months.

Per the agreement, Applied will issue perpetual preferred equity units and common equity units of $2.25 million for each executed lease of 1MW of capacity, up to $900 million to support the full 400MW build-out of the Ellendale campus.

In addition to funding the development of the campus, the money will be used to pay down existing debt against the campus, and other expenses.

"We believe this expanded relationship with MAM positions Applied Digital for significant growth in the industry, establishing Applied Digital as one of the fastest-growing HPC data center owners, operators, and developers in the United States. At today’s build costs, we will have a significant portion of the equity needed to construct over 2 GW of HPC data center capacity, including our Ellendale HPC Campus,” said Wes Cummins, chairman and CEO of Applied Digital.

“With an 85 percent ownership stake in both existing and future HPC assets and access to a project-level preferred equity financing facility sufficient to fund our HPC project pipeline, we believe we are poised for transformative progress. We are excited to have MAM’s support as we establish ourselves as a leader in the Tier 3 data center infrastructure sector, while continuing to develop and operate large-scale, state-of-the-art data centers for world-class customers at the forefront of the AI revolution."

“We are excited to partner with Applied Digital to build and scale its HPC data center platform,” added Anton Moldan, senior managing director of Macquarie Asset Management. "Applied Digital has a differentiated strategy with access to a unique near-term power portfolio across North America in markets attractive for computing needs which address the most demanding AI and other HPC applications at scale. The significant progress at the Ellendale HPC campus makes this a very compelling opportunity for us as well as for potential hyperscale customers.”

Applied Digital (formerly Applied Blockchain) has more than 100MW of capacity under construction for its HPC business in North Dakota and a planned pipeline of more than 1GW. It has more than 280MW of cryptomining capacity in operation across two sites in North Dakota, and more than 1,000 GPUs deployed in four third-party data centers for its AI cloud business.

The company originally broke ground on the Ellendale campus in Dickey County in September 2022. The site’s 180MW ELN01 is for hosting cryptomining hardware; the 369,000 sq ft ELN02 – set to offer 100MW – is for HPC hosting.

The company plans to develop two further buildings on the site for HPC, set to offer a combined 300MW.

While it does not mine its own Bitcoin, the company has traditionally hosted hardware on behalf of other cryptomining firms. As with many other cryptomine firms, the company is pivoting a portion of its footprint to host HPC & AI hardware amid massive demand for available capacity. Applied is also offering its own cloud services and has previously said it will host and offer access to Nvidia Blackwell GPUs.

Ellendale is the company’s second campus within North Dakota, following a 100MW cryptomine facility in Jamestown known as JMS01 that opened in 2022. A second building known as JMS02, announced in late 2022 and set to initially offer 5MW, is for HPC hosting.

A third, 200MW site in Garden City, Texas, went live in 2023 and was sold to Marathon Digital in March 2024.

Another 200MW facility is being planned in Iowa.