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Australia’s Macquarie MQG.AX will invest up to $5 billion in Applied Digital APLD.O’s data centers and take a 15% stake in the company, the technology company said on Tuesday, making climb its shares by more than 15% in pre-market trading.
IT infrastructure providers such as Applied Digital have seen significant investment from companies looking to train their own AI models and get ahead of their competitors.
Macquarie’s asset management arm has agreed to invest up to $900 million in a data center campus that Applied Digital is developing in North Dakota.
It also has a right of first refusal to invest an additional $4.1 billion in the company’s future data centers for 30 months, Dallas, Texas-based Applied Digital said.
The company’s chief executive, Wes Cummins, said the deal gives the company enough equity to build data centers with high energy demands.
-The new financing will be used to repay the debt Applied Digital incurred to build the facilities in North Dakota and will allow it to recoup more than $300 million of its equity investment in those facilities, the company said.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report the news earlier today.
Shares of Applied Digital have more than tripled in the past two years as investors bet on AI companies and data center providers to deliver strong levels of growth.
Microsoft MSFT.O said earlier this month it would invest about $80 billion in AI data centers in fiscal 2025 to meet growing computing needs.
Applied Digital is expected to report second-quarter results Tuesday after markets close.
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