Applied Digital Q1 2027 Revenue Soars 322% as Data‑Center Demand Fuels Earnings Beat

Applied Digital (APLD) reported fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue of $341.9 million for the three months ended August 31, up 322% from $80.9 million a year earlier. Barron's put the consensus estimate at $116.3 million, so the print came in at almost three times expectations. The ramp came from the HPC Hosting business, which produced $262.6 million of revenue and $33.4 million of segment profit as more of its Polaris Forge capacity came online, according to the company's 8-K and 10-Q. One caveat on quality: $183.5 million of the quarter's services revenue was tenant fit-out work rather than recurring rent.

Below the top line, the company remains loss-making on a GAAP basis. Net loss attributable to common stockholders from continuing operations was $221.0 million, or $0.76 per share versus a $0.07 loss a year earlier, according to the company's filings, driven by $77.4 million of interest expense and $60.9 million of fair-value losses on derivatives and investments. Zacks framed the quarter as an earnings miss on higher costs while revenue beat. On the company's adjusted measures the picture was much better: adjusted EBITDA reached $64.4 million against $0.5 million a year earlier, and the adjusted net loss narrowed to $0.01 per share, a positive surprise of about 96.61% against consensus in SentiSense's earnings data.

The balance sheet is the central debate. Applied Digital ended the quarter with $3.7 billion in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash against $6.4 billion of total debt. Against that sits roughly $36 billion of contracted lease revenue across 1.41 GW of critical IT load at five campuses, and management expects delivered capacity in North Dakota to reach 300 MW by the end of calendar 2026.

The market's verdict was muted. One Yahoo Finance headline described the stock jumping, but SentiSense's earnings tracker showed a provisional reaction of only about +0.17% since the report, with shares at $23.85 on Thursday. What to watch next: how quickly the contracted backlog converts into recognized rent, whether interest costs keep swamping segment profit, and whether the next quarter can repeat a revenue line flattered by fit-out work.