Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins On the Hard Part of the AI Boom: Execution

Designing for What Comes After the Current AI Cycle

Applied Digital’s design philosophy starts with a premise many developers still resist: today’s density assumptions may not hold.

“We’re designing for maximum flexibility for the future—higher density power, lower density power, higher voltage delivery, and more floor space,” Cummins said. “It’s counterintuitive because densities are going up, but we don’t know what comes next.”

That choice - to allocate more floor space even as rack densities climb - signals a long-view approach. Facilities are engineered to accommodate shifts in voltage, cooling topology, and customer requirements without forcing wholesale retrofits. Higher-voltage delivery, mixed cooling configurations, and adaptable data halls are baked in from the start.

The goal is not to predict the future perfectly, Cummins stressed, but to avoid painting infrastructure into a corner.

Supply Chain as Competitive Advantage

If flexibility is the design thesis, supply chain control is the execution weapon.

“It’s a huge advantage that we locked in our MEP supply chain 18 to 24 months ago,” Cummins said. “It’s a tight environment, and more timelines are going to get missed in 2026 because of it.”

Applied Digital moved early to secure long-lead mechanical, electrical, and plumbing components; well before demand pressure fully rippled through transformers, switchgear, chillers, generators, and breakers. That foresight now underpins the company’s ability to make credible delivery commitments while competitors confront procurement bottlenecks.

Cummins was blunt: many delays won’t stem from poor planning, but from simple unavailability.

From 100 MW to 700 MW Without Losing Control

The past year marked a structural pivot for Applied Digital. What began as a single, 100-megawatt “field of dreams” facility in North Dakota has become more than 700 MW under construction, with expansion still ahead.

“A hundred megawatts used to be considered scale,” Cummins said. “Now we’re at 700 megawatts under construction. And we need to go bigger.”

That leap required more than capital. It demanded a repeatable delivery model. Applied Digital’s answer is a fourth-generation data center design optimized for speed, cost, and labor efficiency, anchored by extensive off-site assembly.

“The buildings aren’t modular,” Cummins clarified. “What’s modular is the MEP: think LEGO bricks assembled off-site and slid into place.”

By shifting electrical and mechanical complexity into controlled factory environments, Applied Digital reduces on-site labor risk and accelerates schedules, an increasingly decisive advantage as skilled trades grow scarcer.

Power Delivery: All of the Above and Then Some

When it comes to high-density power, Cummins offered no silver bullets.

“It’s all of the above,” he said—utilities, transformers, transmission, breakers—“and it’s very site-specific.”

Congested markets like Texas are becoming harder to navigate, not just because of volume but due to evolving regulatory frameworks such as ERCOT proposals. Voltage levels at the site dictate transformer availability, which in turn drives lead times and design constraints. Even inside the building, long waits persist for high-voltage switchgear and backup generation.

The implication is that power strategy is now inseparable from geography, procurement timing, and regulatory literacy.

Liquid Cooling: Complex Systems, Simple Operations

Applied Digital was an early mover on direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and its Ellendale facility is now operating at scale.

“It’s working extraordinarily well so far,” Cummins said—“but the complexity is something people underestimate.”

Liquid cooling shifts the reliability equation. Beyond UPS and generators, operators must account for pumps, chillers, coolant loops, and fluid storage.

“You can’t burn these chips up,” Cummins said. “So we’ve built massive storage tanks and multiple layers of redundancy.”

The paradox, he noted, is designing a system that is highly complex architecturally but simple to operate and repair. Applied Digital targets “five nines” reliability, even as vendor ecosystems for CDUs and liquid infrastructure continue to mature.

Designing to the Nvidia Roadmap and Beyond

Since 2023, Applied Digital has aligned infrastructure planning with NVIDIA’s roadmap, anticipating shifts from 400/415V to 800V distribution and eventually toward DC power inside the data hall.

“We design to where the Nvidia ecosystem is going, not just where it is today,” Cummins said.

Facilities are built for 100% liquid cooling, with the flexibility to tap chilled water loops for air-cooled environments where customers require mixed configurations. Over time, Cummins expects even network racks to transition to liquid—ushering in a future of nearly silent data halls.

“That’s going to be eerie,” he said. “Dark, quiet, blinking lights.”

A Narrow Customer Focus and Surging Demand

Despite widespread AI demand, Applied Digital remains tightly focused on six customers: five investment-grade hyperscalers—Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Google—plus CoreWeave, which anchors Ellendale.

“Those hyperscalers are still the vast majority of the market,” Cummins said.

At the same time, demand from frontier model developers, AI labs, and neo-cloud providers is accelerating. Momentum jumped sharply in mid-summer, with 2026 power largely spoken for and 2027 capacity rapidly tightening.

“We’re going to see a lot of fire drills through 2026,” Cummins said, predicting urgent calls as delayed projects elsewhere force customers to scramble for capacity.

Partnerships That Shape the Stack

Applied Digital’s partnerships reflect its ambition to lead on power and cooling, not just real estate.

ABB is a core collaborator on next-generation power distribution.

Corintis brings a differentiated direct-to-chip approach capable of cooling chips from 1 kW to 5 kW with consistent flow—an operator’s dream as densities escalate.

“Not having to change liquid flows as power densities increase is incredibly important,” Cummins said.

Applied Digital is also exploring partnerships around gallium nitride and silicon carbide, borrowing from electric-vehicle power electronics to rethink data-center-scale distribution.

The Real Risk: Execution

When asked what keeps him up at night, Cummins didn’t hesitate.

“2026 and 2027 are execution years,” he said. “A lot of announcements are never going to turn into operating facilities.”

He likened the industry’s current moment to the quiet first night home with a newborn, after the excitement fades and responsibility sets in. Construction, labor availability, weather, and supply chains all converge here. Many projects, he warned, will falter.

Applied Digital’s confidence rests on mitigation: locked-in supply chains, favorable labor dynamics in North Dakota, and a proven record of delivering Ellendale’s first building on time and on budget.

“If we continue to execute,” Cummins said, “demand will be there for us. Reliability is going to matter more than anything over the next 12 months.”

The Bottom Line

In a market intoxicated by scale, Applied Digital is betting that discipline wins. Flexible design, early procurement, operational realism, and relentless execution may not generate the flashiest headlines but as the AI buildout enters its hardest phase, they may prove decisive.

At Data Center Frontier, we talk the industry talk and walk the industry walk. In that spirit, DCF Staff members may occasionally use AI tools to assist with content. Elements of this article were created with help from OpenAI's GPT5.

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