NEW YORK, December 31, 2025, 18:23 ET — After-hours
- Applied Digital shares were up 1.8% in after-hours trading, extending Wednesday’s gains.
- Northland and Lake Street reiterated bullish ratings and kept $40–$45 price targets, Benzinga reported.
- Investors are watching next week’s earnings call and next steps for a proposed cloud unit combination with Ekso.
Applied Digital Corp shares were up 1.8% at $24.52 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, as investors weighed fresh bullish analyst commentary heading into the company’s next earnings update. The stock traded between $23.97 and $25.93 during the day, with about 29.0 million shares changing hands.
The move matters because Applied Digital has become a high-beta wager on the buildout of artificial-intelligence computing capacity, where access to power, data-center space and specialized chips can dictate growth. With results due next week, traders are looking for clarity on demand and funding as the company reshapes its story around a cloud platform and data-center development.
Applied Digital is also in the middle of a strategic pivot that could separate how investors value its assets. Any update on the timing, structure and capital needs tied to that plan can move the stock quickly.
Northland Capital Markets analyst Mike Grondahl on Tuesday maintained an Outperform rating on Applied Digital with a $40 price target, while Lake Street analyst Rob Brown reiterated a Buy rating and kept a $45 target, Benzinga reported.
Those calls come as investors look for confirmation that Applied Digital can line up long-term contracts and keep its buildout on schedule. The company’s shares have shown sharp swings around headlines tied to AI infrastructure, with sentiment often shifting on financing and execution risk.
Applied Digital said on Monday it signed a non-binding term sheet — a preliminary agreement that is not final — to combine its cloud computing business, Applied Digital Cloud, with Nasdaq-listed Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc, forming a new company called ChronoScale. Applied Digital expects to own about 97% of the combined company and said the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to due diligence and approvals. “ChronoScale is intended to deliver accelerated compute at scale for the most demanding AI workloads,” Chief Executive Wes Cummins said; the company put its cloud unit’s trailing 12-month revenue at about $75.2 million as of Aug. 31, 2025. Applied Digital Corporation
“Accelerated compute” is industry shorthand for using specialized chips to speed up heavy workloads; for AI, that typically means graphics processing units, or GPUs. The bottleneck for GPU-heavy projects is often power and available data-center capacity, which is why contract wins and financing terms are closely watched.
The proposed combination would separate the cloud platform from Applied Digital’s data-center ownership and development business. That can give each piece more flexibility, but it also raises questions about how much capital the businesses will need while the deal is still in progress.
In a December 29 filing, Applied Digital said ChronoScale expects to file a Form S-4 registration statement — an SEC document used to register shares in a merger — along with a proxy statement/prospectus for Ekso shareholders.
Applied Digital’s next scheduled catalyst is its fiscal second-quarter 2026 earnings call on Jan. 7 at 5 p.m. ET, according to its investor relations calendar. Investors will be looking for updates on contracted demand, buildout timelines and cash needs, and any added detail on the cloud business plan.
The earnings update is also expected to sharpen focus on capital strategy. Infrastructure-heavy models can produce fast revenue growth but require steady funding, and investors tend to react to any sign that dilution or higher-cost debt is needed to keep projects moving.
Any move toward a definitive agreement with Ekso — or new disclosures on financing tied to the ChronoScale plan — would be an immediate catalyst. Absent that, traders are likely to keep the spotlight on next week’s outlook and whether management can translate AI infrastructure demand into predictable, contracted cash flow.
