How Applied Digital Became the Landlord for Big Tech’s AI Buildout

AI data centers are becoming the backbone of the global economy, and Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins says we’re still in the early innings. In this episode, Wes breaks down how his company went from building crypto infrastructure to making a massive early bet on AI before the rest of Wall Street caught on. He explains why hyperscalers like CoreWeave, Meta, and Microsoft are scrambling for power and compute capacity, why North Dakota unexpectedly became a hotspot for AI infrastructure, and why he believes data centers, not GPUs, will become the biggest bottleneck in AI. We also dig into the company’s explosive growth, the risks around debt and energy demand, and whether today’s AI boom could end like the dot-com bubble.