Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) is acquiring a 15% stake in Applied Digital’s high-performance computing (HPC) US data centre business and committing up to $5bn (€4.9bn) to support its future development.
Funds managed by MAM have entered into a perpetual preferred equity financing agreement by investing up to $900m in Applied Digital’s Ellendale HPC data centre campus in a deal that allows for the investment of up to an additional $4.1bn across Applied Digital’s future HPC data centre pipeline.
Applied Digital said it intends to use the MAM investment, along with future project financing, to repay project-level debt and recover an estimated $300m of its equity investment in the Ellendale HPC Campus.
Wes Cummins, chairman and CEO of Applied Digital, said: ”We believe this expanded relationship with MAM positions Applied Digital for significant growth in the industry, establishing Applied Digital as one of the fastest-growing HPC data centre owners, operators and developers in the US. At today’s build costs, we will have a significant portion of the equity needed to construct over 2GW of HPC data centre capacity, including our Ellendale HPC Campus.”
“With an 85% ownership stake in both existing and future HPC assets and access to a project-level preferred equity financing facility sufficient to fund our HPC project pipeline, we believe we are poised for transformative progress.”
Anton Moldan, senior MD of Macquarie Asset Management, said: “Applied Digital has a differentiated strategy with access to a unique near-term power portfolio across North America in markets attractive for computing needs which address the most demanding AI and other HPC applications at scale.”
The significant progress at the Ellendale HPC campus makes this a very compelling opportunity for us as well as for potential hyperscale customers.”
To read the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.
