The AI boom has sparked a gold rush across the tech industry. Smaller infrastructure operators are now successfully securing multi-billion-dollar contracts to meet rapidly growing demand.

According to Detik Finance, Applied Digital has transformed from a small data center operator into a highly prominent AI infrastructure provider. The company recently signed a 15-year lease agreement valued at approximately $5.2 billion with a US-based investment-grade hyperscale cloud service provider.

Securing long-term contracts helps build customer trust, a critical competitive advantage in the highly competitive semiconductor and computing sectors. Driven by these developments, Applied Digital's stock has risen 88% year-to-date, outperforming many large technology companies and the broader market.

With a current market capitalization of $13.02 billion, Applied Digital specializes in building and operating large-scale, power-intensive data centers. Hyperscale cloud service providers and AI enterprises leverage these facilities to run massive GPU clusters.

Rather than developing software models, the company provides the necessary physical land, buildings, cooling systems, and network infrastructure to support heavy AI workloads. By recognizing that AI computing requires larger-scale facilities than traditional data centers, the company has gained a first-mover advantage.

Nearly two years ago, before the current infrastructure boom, the company had already begun construction of its first 100-megawatt liquid-cooled facility. Notably, this initial 100-megawatt facility represents only one-tenth of the company's currently under-construction total capacity.

The recently signed 15-year lease agreement for the Delta Forge 2 AI Factory campus covers 210 megawatts of computing capacity and features a "pay-as-you-use" structure. If the customer exercises all renewal options, the total contract value could reach $12.7 billion over 30 years.

Following the agreement's effectiveness, the company's committed base lease revenue has risen to $36 billion. Should customers fully exercise all future lease renewals, this figure could increase to approximately $86 billion.

Applied Digital currently manages five separate campuses with approximately 1.4 gigawatts of IT load and 2.15 gigawatts of grid-connected power capacity. This substantial scale ensures highly predictable long-term cash flows while demonstrating that major hyperscale cloud service providers trust the company to manage mission-critical assets.