Applied Digital Corp. (APLD) shares swung sharply on Wednesday, sinking about 6% during regular trading before reversing course to rally roughly 4% in after-hours action as investors digested the data center operator's fiscal first-quarter results, highlighted by a revenue surge that far exceeded Wall Street's forecasts.

The headline number was revenue. It came in at $341.9 million for the quarter ended August 31, up 322% from $80.9 million in the same period a year earlier, crushing Wall Street's consensus estimate of roughly $134 million. Analysts had not expected the year-over-year jump to be nearly that steep.

The bottom line told a messier story. Net loss attributable to common stockholders widened to $221 million, or $0.76 per share, compared with $18.5 million, or $0.07 per share, a year earlier. Adjusted for one-time items, however, the quarterly loss came in at just $0.01 per share, easily topping expectations for a $0.26 loss. Alongside the revenue surge, the company reported a smaller-than-expected adjusted loss and continued expansion of its contracted data center pipeline.

Applied Digital, $APLD, Q1-27. AI-factory revenue exploded, but the buildout remains brutally capital-intensive. 🟢 Revenue: $341.9M vs ~$135M est. 🟢 Adj. EPS: -$0.01 vs -$0.30 est. 📜 Contracted revenue: ~$36B 🏗️ Property/equipment spend: $2.07B pic.twitter.com/bNInB0mMKe

— EarningsTime (@Earnings_Time) October 7, 2026
Total costs and expenses jumped to $404.3 million from $90.7 million a year earlier. The company pointed to higher spending on getting data centers ready for customers, along with rising stock-based compensation and interest expenses. Property and equipment spending reached $2.07 billion during the quarter — roughly six times the period's entire revenue, a measure of the capital intensity behind the AI data center buildout.

HPC Hosting, the segment that rents out high-performance computing capacity, brought in $262.6 million during the quarter — about three-quarters of total revenue — a figure that is fast making it the backbone of the business.

As of August 31, Applied Digital held $3.7 billion in cash and restricted cash, against $6.4 billion in debt, leaving a net debt position of roughly $2.7 billion.

Chief Executive Wes Cummins said the company is "building for the long term," pointing to its large-scale AI campuses and contracts with investment-grade hyperscalers.

Data Center Expansion Continues

Applied Digital's contracted pipeline continued to expand and now covers 1.41 gigawatts of critical IT load across five campuses, representing close to $36 billion in contracted revenue over the life of the leases — a backlog that will be recognized over the lease terms rather than in any single quarter.

At the Polaris Forge 1 site in North Dakota, the company delivered an additional 75 megawatts in July and a further 75 megawatts after the quarter closed, bringing operational capacity there to 250 megawatts. Polaris Forge 2 is expected to begin contributing soon, which would push total Dakota capacity to 300 megawatts before year-end — the company's most immediate delivery milestone.

New Markets and Partnerships

Applied Digital is also looking beyond the United States for the first time, having recently secured access to up to one gigawatt of potential power capacity in Finland. Back home, the company signed a power purchase agreement tied to a planned 1,200-megawatt natural gas plant in North Dakota, providing another electricity source for future projects. Both moves reflect a broader industry reality: as AI campuses scale up, securing large blocks of electricity has become one of the sector's central challenges.

ChronoScale, the cloud unit in which Applied Digital still owns roughly a 96% stake, announced a deal with Microsoft for a 50-megawatt AI compute deployment using Nvidia's GB300 NVL72 systems — placing the majority-owned unit in service for one of the world's largest cloud providers.

Wall Street remains upbeat on the stock. Of the nine analysts covering APLD over the past three months, seven rate it a buy and two are neutral, adding up to a Strong Buy consensus. The average price target sits at $60.07, implying roughly 152% upside from Wednesday's closing price.