Shares of Applied Digital surged 18% on Wednesday after the company reached deals to host CoreWeave's artificial-intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure at its North Dakota data-center campus.

The Dallas-based AI-infrastructure company said that it has entered into two 15-year lease agreements with CoreWeave, a cloud provider.

Applied Digital expects the two leases will generate about $7 billion in revenue during their 15-year terms.

CoreWeave retains the option to access additional megawatts of critical IT load at the Ellendale, N.D., campus, which would allow it to scale for expanding AI and high-performance computing workloads.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

The deal could prove to be a major lifeline for Applied Digital, which has been facing challenges in the data center hosting sector as it transitions into a data center real estate investment trust.

KEY QUOTES

"These leases solidify Applied Digital's position as an emerging provider of infrastructure critical to the next generation of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing,” CEO of Applied Digital, Wes Cummins, said in a statement.

"Through these newly signed long-term leases with CoreWeave, we are taking a step forward in our strategic expansion into advanced compute infrastructure."

CONTEXT

The emergence of new cloud service providers, known as "neoclouds" like CoreWeave, focuses on renting Nvidia's highly sought-after chips to software developers.

Leasing data center infrastructure from companies like Applied Digital helps reduce some of the financial burden of providing AI-centric cloud services.