Applied Digital’s AI-data-center bet is starting to show up dramatically in its financial statements. The company reported $341.9 million in fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue, up 322% from $80.9 million a year earlier, as new high-performance-computing capacity moved from construction into paying operation.
Reuters reported that revenue beat the $133.8 million average analyst estimate compiled by LSEG. The catch is that expansion is expensive: net loss attributable to common stockholders widened to $221 million, or $0.76 per share, from $18.5 million a year earlier.
The AI Factory Is Becoming the Business
Applied Digital began life much closer to Bitcoin-mining infrastructure, but its center of gravity has shifted toward large-scale AI and high-performance-computing campuses. That transition is now visible in the numbers: HPC Hosting generated $262.6 million in quarterly revenue, including $65.8 million of base rent, $183.5 million from tenant fit-out services and $13.3 million of tenant recoveries.
The company’s Polaris Forge 1 campus in Ellendale, North Dakota, now has 250 MW of critical IT load operating across two buildings and 10 data halls. That is a major jump from the earlier phase of the project, and it helps explain why revenue can rise so quickly once energized capacity begins billing customers.
Construction Costs Are Hitting the Income Statement
The growth is not free. Total costs and expenses climbed to $404.3 million from $90.7 million a year earlier. Applied Digital said higher spending came from customer data-center fit-outs, stock-based compensation, staffing, professional services and interest expense as it expanded its infrastructure footprint.
That spending is tied to the physical work required to turn a shell into an AI data hall: electrical distribution, liquid cooling, racks, networking, controls and final commissioning. An AI factory cannot recognize revenue just because land is purchased or a building shell is standing; the critical systems have to be installed, tested, energized and accepted.
Applied Digital Has $3.7 Billion in Cash — and $6.4 Billion in Debt
The balance sheet shows the scale of the buildout. As of August 31, Applied Digital held $3.7 billion in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash while carrying $6.4 billion in debt. That combination gives the company substantial liquidity, but it also means execution matters: campuses have to come online and long-term leases have to turn into durable cash flow.
That is why Applied Digital’s history is useful context. BitcoinVersus.Tech covered the company in 2024 when North Dakota was emerging as a major AI-data-center target. Less than two years later, the conversation is no longer only about proposed campuses. Hundreds of megawatts are operating, additional buildings are under construction, and revenue is beginning to reflect that physical capacity.
More Capacity Is Already Coming
In its official earnings release, Applied Digital said it expects Polaris Forge 2 to help lift delivered critical IT load across its North Dakota campuses to 300 MW by the end of 2026. It also has Polaris Forge 3, Delta Forge 1 and Delta Forge 2 in various stages of development, plus an agreement for up to roughly 1 GW of potential power capacity in Finland.
The company is also tied directly into the newest generation of AI hardware. Majority-owned ChronoScale has announced a 50 MW North American deployment for Microsoft using NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 systems and advanced cooling. That makes Applied Digital part of the broader shift BitcoinVersus.Tech has been tracking from individual servers toward entire rack-scale AI factories.
The quarter therefore shows both sides of the AI-infrastructure boom at once. Revenue can expand extremely fast when megawatts become operational, but the race to build those megawatts demands enormous amounts of capital before the returns fully arrive. Applied Digital’s next test is whether the 322% revenue jump becomes the start of durable operating leverage rather than simply the most visible phase of a very expensive construction cycle.
BitcoinVersus.Tech
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