Mystery Solved: Applied Digital‘s Delta Forge 1 — the AI data center campus that has been under active construction since January with its location deliberately kept secret — has been revealed as coming to Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana. The disclosure, made through Louisiana Economic Development, ends months of speculation about where one of the most significant AI infrastructure commitments in the United States is actually being built.
When Applied Digital broke ground on Delta Forge 1 in January 2026, the company identified the site only as a “strategic southern U.S. market,” offering no further geographic detail. That silence held even through April 23, when Applied Digital announced it had signed a $7.5 billion, 15-year lease agreement with an undisclosed investment-grade U.S. hyperscaler covering 300 megawatts of critical IT load at the campus — a deal that pushed the company’s total contracted revenue backlog above $23 billion and sent its stock surging between 9% and 14% in a single trading session. Even then, the exact location remained confidential.
Louisiana ED’s May 26, 2026 announcement finally answered the question the market and the public had been asking since January: Delta Forge 1 is in Rapides Parish, and it is the company’s first Louisiana facility.
Campus size
The campus spans approximately 300 acres and will initially comprise two facilities delivering 300 megawatts of critical IT load, engineered specifically for large-scale AI training and inference workloads. Applied Digital will deploy its closed-loop cooling technology across the site to manage the extreme heat density generated by modern AI accelerators. Regional utility provider Cleco will supply power to the campus — a commitment that Cleco President and CEO Bill Fontenot described as the largest economic development opportunity in the company’s more than 90-year history.
The $3.6 billion investment is backed by a state incentive structure that helped seal the deal. Applied Digital qualified for Louisiana’s sales and use tax exemption on data center equipment under Act 730 of the 2024 Legislative Session, reducing the capital burden on what is an extraordinarily equipment-heavy operation. Beyond tax policy, state officials have pointed to available land, direct grid access, and a developing workforce pipeline as the competitive factors that brought Applied Digital to Central Louisiana over other southern markets.
Delta Forge 1 is one of several massive AI data center campuses reshaping communities across the United States. In Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Oracle is developing Project Jupiter — a $165 billion AI training data center campus that ranks among the largest private infrastructure investments ever proposed in the country.
Jobs
The economic impact for the region is substantial. Applied Digital will directly employ 200 full-time on-site workers at salaries set at 150% of the Louisiana state average wage, with Louisiana Economic Development estimating a further 218 indirect jobs in the surrounding economy — bringing the total projected employment impact to 418 new positions. During construction, more than 1,000 workers are expected on site at peak activity.
Site development began in January and initial operations remain on track for mid-2027. Beyond that, the campus carries significant expansion potential, with Applied Digital planning additional scaling capacity from 2028 onward — a detail that suggests Rapides Parish could become a long-term anchor in the company’s growing AI infrastructure portfolio rather than a one-phase build.
The location reveal also adds important context to the April lease deal. The $7.5 billion agreement, structured to generate roughly half a billion dollars annually over 15 years with an unnamed hyperscaler, is now confirmed to be tied to Louisiana soil. That kind of long-duration, take-or-pay commitment reflects a broader structural shift in how hyperscalers — companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and others racing to secure AI compute capacity — are locking in infrastructure well in advance of demand, often before public details about the underlying facilities are disclosed.
For Central Louisiana, a region whose industrial identity has long been tied to petrochemicals and manufacturing rather than technology, the arrival of Delta Forge 1 carries symbolic as much as economic weight. Chris Masingill, President and CEO of Louisiana Central, drew a comparison to the transformational industrial investments of the 1950s and 60s — a measure of how significant local leaders consider the project relative to the region’s entire economic history.
Delta Forge 1 AI Data Center Campus — Project Factsheet
Overview
- Developer: Applied Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: APLD)
- Project Type: AI Factory Campus
- Location: Rapides Parish, Central Louisiana (first revealed May 2026)
- Status: Active construction and site development
- Groundbreaking: January 2026
- Initial Operations: Mid-2027
- Expansion Phase: 2028 and beyond
Scale and Capacity
- Total site area: 500+ acres
- Total utility power: 430 MW
- Critical IT load: 300 MW
- Initial build: Two data center facilities, 150 MW each
- Design focus: High-density AI training and inference workloads
Investment and Financing
- Total project cost: $3.6 billion
- $300 million secured bridge facility for campus development
- $300 million revolving credit facility for liquidity and expansion
Lease and Revenue
- Lease value: $7.5 billion
- Lease duration: 15 years
- Capacity covered: 300 MW
- Annual average revenue: ~$500 million
- Tenant: Undisclosed U.S.-based investment-grade hyperscaler
- Deal announced: April 23, 2026
- Total contracted revenue backlog impact: Exceeds $23 billion
Infrastructure and Technology
- Applied Digital proprietary closed-loop cooling technology
- High-density power distribution networks
- Industrial-scale cooling systems
- Modular expansion architecture for phased capacity growth
- Design refined from Polaris Forge campus experience in North Dakota
- Direct access to energy grid infrastructure
- Power provider: Cleco
Jobs and Economic Impact
- Direct full-time jobs: 200 (at 150% of Louisiana state average wage)
- Peak construction jobs: 1,000+
- Indirect jobs (Louisiana ED estimate): 218
- Total projected regional jobs: 418
Incentives
- Qualified for Louisiana state and local sales and use tax exemption on data center equipment
- Established under Act 730 of the 2024 Louisiana Regular Legislative Session
Key Milestones
- January 2026: Groundbreaking announced, location undisclosed
- April 23, 2026: $7.5 billion, 15-year lease deal signed with unnamed hyperscaler, location still undisclosed
- May 2026: Louisiana Economic Development officially reveals Rapides Parish as project location
- Mid-2027: Initial operations expected
- 2028+: Expansion phase begins
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