Applied Digital stock rises 5% on Polaris Forge 1 update

Applied Digital shares climbed roughly 5% on Thursday after the company switched on another big chunk of its North Dakota AI campus. The Nasdaq-listed company (APLD) said on October 2, 2026, that the second phase of Building 2 at its Polaris Forge 1 AI Factory campus in Ellendale had reached Ready for Service status. That added 75 MW of critical IT load and pushed the site’s operational total to 250 MW. What actually came online The new capacity spans three data halls, each rated at 25 MW. “Ready for Service” is the industry’s way of saying the lights, power and cooling are live and the tenant can start moving in equipment. This latest phase follows two earlier milestones at the same campus. Applied Digital previously completed an initial 100 MW building, then launched a first 75 MW phase of Building 2. The campus is designed to eventually reach 400 MW of critical IT load, which leaves 150 MW still to be built out. The entire campus is already fully leased under long-term agreements. The anchor customer is CoreWeave, the hyperscale AI cloud provider. How the stock reacted APLD rose about 5% intraday on the news, with trading volume running significantly above normal. Some reports p...