New York, January 5, 2026, 10:57 ET — Regular session
- Applied Digital shares rose about 6% in morning trade, outpacing broader tech gains.
- Focus is on Jan. 7 results and management’s update on North Dakota AI data center buildouts.
- Elevated short interest keeps the setup prone to sharp moves in either direction.
Applied Digital Corp shares were last up 6.3% at $29.88 on Monday, after touching a session high of $30.11. The Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, rose about 1.0%.
The move matters because Applied Digital is due to post fiscal second-quarter results on Wednesday and host a conference call at 5 p.m. ET. The quarter ended Nov. 30, 2025, and the update is the next checkpoint on whether the company’s AI-focused data center leasing can scale as planned.
Applied Digital’s investor relations site lists its most recent press release as Dec. 29, and its latest SEC filing as a Dec. 29 8-K, a form used to disclose major corporate developments. With few fresh disclosures since late December, traders have trained their attention on Wednesday’s report and commentary.
On Dec. 29, the company said it signed a non-binding term sheet — a preliminary deal outline — to combine its cloud computing unit with Nasdaq-listed EKSO Bionics and form a new company called ChronoScale. Applied Digital said it would own about 97% of the combined business, and CEO Wes Cummins said ChronoScale is meant to “deliver accelerated compute at scale for the most demanding AI workloads.” 1
The broader bull case rests on long-dated, power-hungry leases tied to artificial intelligence computing. Reuters has reported that Applied Digital signed two 15-year leases with CoreWeave expected to generate about $7 billion in revenue over the term, and later added a separate $5 billion lease with a U.S.-based hyperscaler for 200 megawatts at its Polaris Forge 2 site in North Dakota.
Investors listening on Wednesday will focus less on headlines and more on conversion: how quickly contracted capacity turns into recurring lease revenue, and what the timeline looks like for bringing additional buildings online. In data centers, “colocation” typically means renting space, power and cooling to customers that install their own servers, while HPC — high-performance computing — refers to dense, compute-heavy workloads like AI training.
Positioning adds another layer. MarketWatch data show roughly 34% of Applied Digital’s float sold short — shares borrowed and sold by traders betting on a decline — a level that can amplify rallies when shorts rush to cover. The stock’s 52-week range is $3.31 to $40.20, underscoring the volatility investors are pricing in. 2
Technical traders are also watching nearby chart levels. Barchart’s pivot-point calculations — levels derived from the prior session’s trading range — put resistance around $30.86 and support near $25.69. 3
Moves across the AI infrastructure complex were mixed. CoreWeave shares were up about 2.7%, while data center REITs Digital Realty and Equinix were down modestly in morning trading.
But the downside case is straightforward: big builds demand capital, and the trade is sensitive to tenant credit and funding costs. A Reuters Breakingviews column has warned that reliance on less-established “neo-cloud” tenants and higher borrowing costs can squeeze developer returns and slow construction if lenders turn more cautious. 4
