Alabama's 210-Megawatt Delta Forge 2 Starts Construction in October

Applied Digital confirmed on September 24 that Delta Forge 2, the 210-megawatt AI campus it leased in June to an undisclosed hyperscaler, will be built near Brookwood in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Two days later the Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority unanimously approved a 20-year incentive package for the $3.2 billion project. Construction is expected to begin in October, with operations anticipated in the first half of 2028.

The lease came first. Applied Digital signed the 210-megawatt agreement on June 8 with a U.S.-based investment-grade hyperscaler, its third deal with that same tenant, and disclosed only that the campus would sit in a southern state. The structure is a 15-year take-or-pay lease worth $5.2 billion over the base term and $12.7 billion if every renewal option is exercised, which would carry the total term to 30 years. Delta Forge 2 is the company's fifth AI campus and brings its contracted portfolio to roughly $36 billion across 1.4 gigawatts of critical IT load and about 2.15 gigawatts of grid-connected utility power.

The county package is substantial. It covers $314.5 million in noneducational property, sales and use tax abatements over 20 years, paired with $270 million in community-benefit payments, or $13.5 million a year. School taxes were excluded from the abatement, and the authority projects $131.5 million in education tax revenue over the same period. The first building will occupy 160 acres of a nearly 1,300-acre property and reach about 1.26 million square feet.

For electrical contractors, 210 megawatts of contracted critical IT load is the number that matters. Critical load is the power actually delivered to the servers, which means the campus has to be built to carry considerably more at the utility service: medium-voltage feeders, switchgear lineups, standby generation, uninterruptible power supply systems, and overhead busway feeding high-density rack rows. Applied Digital says Delta Forge 2 uses its waterless cooling design, which shifts heat rejection toward fans and pumps rather than water systems and keeps more of the plant on the electrical side of the job. A campus this size is years of medium-voltage terminating, cable pulling, and commissioning, not a single build season.

Applied Digital puts peak construction employment above 1,000 workers and permanent onsite staffing at more than 100 full-time positions. Alabama licenses journeyman electricians statewide through the Alabama Board of Electrical Contractors, and a journeyman there works under a master or state-certified electrical contractor, so travelers arriving for the build need the state card and an in-state contractor of record. Alabama has been adding data center capacity through 2026, which means Brookwood is unlikely to be the last campus in the state competing for the same crews.

Ground is expected to break next month. The first megawatts are not due until 2028.