Applied Digital is building one of the largest AI campuses in the U.S. South. Delta Forge 1, a $3.6 billion development in Rapides Parish near Boyce, Louisiana, broke ground in 2026 and is purpose-built for large-scale AI training and inference rather than the general cloud workloads that filled the last generation of data centers.
Project Scope
The campus is designed for 430 megawatts of capacity, with an initial phase of two facilities totaling roughly 300 megawatts of critical IT load across about 300 acres. The site was picked for direct access to energy infrastructure, the binding constraint on nearly every large AI build today. Initial operations are expected in mid-2027. At peak the job will put more than 1,000 construction workers on site, and the finished campus supports around 200 full-time on-site roles at salaries well above the regional average.
Why It Matters
Central Louisiana is not where the data-center map used to point. Delta Forge 1 lands a hyperscale-class AI facility in a rural parish, betting that power availability and land beat proximity to a coastal metro. The project reflects the wider shift in the sector: capacity is being sited where utilities can actually deliver hundreds of megawatts, and owners are signing power arrangements before they finalize construction. For the region, it’s an anchor investment that pulls in substations, fiber, and a construction pipeline that outlasts the initial build.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Applied Digital Corporation |
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| Owner / Client | Applied Digital Corporation |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Funding Source | Private |
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