Applied Digital has officially completed the first data center building at its large-scale campus in Ellendale, North Dakota, marking a major milestone in the company’s long-term strategy to expand its AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.
The newly completed structure—referred to as Building 1—spans 100MW of capacity and was built in two distinct 50MW phases. The first 50MW went live in late October, and the final phase is now fully operational, bringing the entire building online and ready to support high-demand workloads.
The Ellendale site, known as the Polaris Forge 1 AI Factory Campus, is planned to provide 400MW of capacity once all phases are complete. Originally conceived in 2022 as part of Applied Digital’s combined crypto and HPC strategy, the project has since evolved into a cornerstone of the company’s AI-focused operations.
A major driver behind the transformation has been CoreWeave. The cloud provider initially signed a deal earlier this year to purchase 250MW of capacity but later expanded its commitment. Through a long-term $11 billion, 15-year agreement, CoreWeave will now utilize the full capacity of the entire 400MW campus, illustrating how aggressively AI and compute-intensive firms are securing dedicated infrastructure pipelines.
Applied Digital rebranded from Applied Blockchain in November 2022 as part of its shift away from a purely crypto-centered identity. The company has increasingly diversified into AI and HPC hosting as demand for high-density infrastructure accelerates. Alongside its hosting services, Applied Digital is also building out its own cloud offerings and has confirmed it will support Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, which are among the most sought-after chips in the AI industry.
Despite this shift toward AI and HPC, Applied Digital continues to operate cryptomining facilities, including the 180MW ELN01 facility, which is also located in Ellendale. The coexistence of AI, HPC, and crypto operations reflects the company’s hybrid approach to balancing new and legacy workloads during a period of massive growth in compute demand.
Ellendale, located in southern North Dakota near the South Dakota border, has become a strategic hub for the company due to its available land, access to power infrastructure, and the region’s growing appeal for large-scale data center development.
With Building 1 now fully online, Applied Digital is expected to continue ramping up construction
Originally reported by Jason Ma in Data Center Dynamics.
