Applied Digital Is Spinning Out Its Cloud Business. How Should You Play APLD Stock Here?

Core Insights - Applied Digital (APLD) announced a strategic spinoff to enhance its position in the AI infrastructure market by merging its cloud computing division with EKSO Bionics Holdings to form ChronoScale Corporation, which will focus on AI workloads [1][3] Company Developments - The transaction structure allows Applied Digital to retain approximately 97% ownership of the new entity, enabling it to spin out its cloud business while maintaining significant control [2] - ChronoScale will serve as a standalone platform for GPU-intensive AI training and inference workloads, allowing both Applied Digital and ChronoScale to pursue independent growth strategies with increased capital flexibility [3] Financial Performance - Applied Digital's market capitalization is currently valued at $6.88 billion, with its stock price having more than tripled in the past year, although it is down nearly 40% from its 52-week high [4] - The company is transitioning from a cryptocurrency mining operation to a key player in the AI infrastructure sector, having secured billions in long-term contracts that provide revenue visibility [5] Infrastructure Development - The flagship data center, Polaris Forge 1, is a 400-megawatt facility leased to CoreWeave under a 15-year agreement valued at approximately $11 billion, with a subsequent $5 billion deal for Polaris Forge 2 with an unnamed investment-grade hyperscaler customer [6] - Applied Digital is constructing data centers in North Dakota, where electricity costs are 24% below the national average, which is advantageous given the high power consumption of AI queries compared to traditional internet searches [7]