CoreWeave Stock Surges 276% YTD as $7 Billion AI Data Center Deal Boosts Growth

CoreWeave (CRWV) shares jumped 25% on Tuesday and gained an additional 5% in pre-market trading, pushing its year-to-date rally to an extraordinary 276%. The surge comes after the company announced a landmark $7 billion infrastructure agreement with Applied Digital, aimed at expanding high-performance computing (HPC) capacity to meet soaring AI demand.

The AI-focused cloud computing firm signed two 15-year lease contracts for a combined 250 megawatts (MW) of IT load at Applied Digital’s Ellendale data center campus in North Dakota. The first phase—a 100MW facility—is slated to launch in Q4 2025, followed by a 150MW expansion in mid-2026. CoreWeave also retains options to add up to 300MW more capacity at the site.

Designed to support 400MW of critical IT load, the Ellendale campus is considering an upgrade to over 1 gigawatt (GW) of power capacity, underscoring the massive scale of this project.

Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins called the deal a “key milestone” that solidifies the company’s position as a leader in AI and HPC infrastructure.

Backing CoreWeave’s ambitious expansion, the company recently secured $375 million in financing from SMBC to accelerate its development plans. Investor enthusiasm continues to build around the company’s rapid growth, fueled by the explosive demand for AI computing resources.