Applied Digital / Ellendale Data Center
"A tiny North Dakota town's boom is leveraged to CoreWeave, one of the most-questioned credits in the AI buildout."
Dickey County, ND
Source: OpenStreetMap
Applied Digital / Ellendale Data Center is an operating data center in Dickey County, ND, operated by Applied Digital Corporation. DataCentersExposed has documented 400 MW of reported power capacity and a 2,706,035 sq ft footprint at this site.
Reporting by Eric Keller · Updated Jun 17, 2026
Overview
source: linkPolaris Forge 1 sits on the edge of Ellendale, North Dakota, a town of about 1,300 people. Built by Applied Digital (Nasdaq: APLD), the 400-megawatt campus is fully leased to the GPU-cloud firm CoreWeave on roughly 15-year terms worth about $7 billion, financed in part by a $5 billion facility from Macquarie, and engineered to scale past a gigawatt.
The reason it is here is power. The Ellendale substation holds up to about 2 gigawatts of "stranded" wind that North Dakota cannot move out on limited transmission lines. Counterintuitively, by paying a Basin Electric large-load tariff that shares revenue back, the project has actually lowered statewide electric rates, with rebates of around $70 a year per customer. The cold climate lets the campus run waterless, closed-loop cooling for much of the year.
The risk sits one layer up. Applied Digital's revenue now rests overwhelmingly on CoreWeave, which carries heavy debt and depends on Microsoft for the majority of its revenue, with Nvidia contractually backstopping unsold capacity. A small town's boom is tied to one of the most scrutinized credits in the entire AI buildout.
Operator chain
- Ultimate parentApplied Digital Corporation
- Files asApplied Digital Corporation
- This facilityApplied Digital / Ellendale Data Center
The grid behind this site, right now
source: MISO · gridstatus- Natural Gas34.4%
- Coal32.8%
- Solar15.4%
- Nuclear10.2%
- Wind4.1%
- Other2.2%
- Imports0.9%
Real-time generation mix for the MISO grid this site draws from, as of Aug 17, 2026, 8:05 PM. ISO-wide, not this facility's own metering. Source: gridstatus.
Grid & water — why here
source: HIFLD · EPAThe closest existing grid infrastructure and the municipal water system this location sits in — the same constraints the buildout model screens on (it won't site a campus more than ~2 km from a substation or ~5 km from municipal water). Distances are straight-line to public HIFLD/EPA features, not a metered connection.
In the news
source: GDELT- Applied Digital taps $2.35B junk-bond market to build CoreWeave’s AI data center - Crypto BriefingCrypto Briefing· Jun 10, 2026
- Applied Digital Prices $1.59 Billion Notes Offering to Fund North Dakota AI Data Center - MoomooMoomoo· Jun 9, 2026
- Applied Digital raises $1.59B in new debt to expand its North Dakota AI data center campus - Crypto BriefingCrypto Briefing· Jun 9, 2026
- Applied Digital (APLD) Stock Continues To Rise As Company Gets Loan For North Dakota Data Center - Yahoo FinanceYahoo Finance· May 14, 2026
- Applied Digital exec touts North Dakota energy output in ongoing talks over data centers - KFYR-TVKFYR-TV· May 5, 2026
- Applied Digital secures 300MW lease with hyperscaler at Louisiana data center campus - Data Center DynamicsData Center Dynamics· Apr 23, 2026
Tax breaks & subsidies
source: Good Jobs First / GASB 77No per-deal tax break is linked to this site yet. No state discloses the recipient of a data-center abatement at the facility level, so per-site deals are rare in the public record. If you have a development agreement or board resolution for this site, send it to us.
North Dakota reported $19.4M in Qualified Data Center sales/use tax exemption for enterprise IT equipment & computer software (N.D.C.C. § 57-39.2-04.17) for FY2024 (North Dakota Legislative Council / Office of State Tax Commissioner (testimony)). Program-wide, not attributable to this site.
Water use
No measured record exists, so this is a low-confidence model from 600 MW (disclosed IT power): 1.2 L/kWh cooling (cool climate) + 0.45 gal/kWh embedded in US grid average. How we estimate. Have a utility document? Send it and we'll replace this with the real figure.
EPA permits & violations
source: EPA ECHONo reported violations as of last sync.
Air quality near this site
source: AirNowAir Quality Index from the nearest AirNow reporting area (Aberdeen), as of 2026-06-10. Regional context — not this facility's own emissions.
Who lives nearby
source: Census ACS 2023Demographics of the census tract this facility sits in (American Community Survey 5-year estimates). Environmental-justice context for who bears the local impacts.
Nearest school
source: HIFLD / NCESThe nearest public school, Ellendale High Virtual Academy in Ellendale, is 2.5 mi from this site (6 students).
Schools are sensitive receptors for the noise, backup-generator exhaust, and traffic a large data center brings. Straight-line distance to the nearest public school (HIFLD/NCES, US public schools only).
Hearings timeline
No public-hearing records linked to this site yet. We surface planning-commission and board-of-supervisors dates when a record names a facility. If you know of a hearing on this site, tell us.