Applied Digital reaches agreement with EKSO on new cloud business
Applied Digital (APLD) announced that it is spinning off its cloud business and has entered into a non-binding agreement with EKSO Bionics Holdings (EKSO).
Once the deal is closed, the new company will be called ChronoScale Corporation, which Applied Digital calls an "accelerated compute platform" that will be purpose-built to support artificial intelligence workloads.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. Applied Digital will then own 97% of ChronoScale.
The company has been looking to streamline its operations by spinning off its cloud unit in order to focus on its bread-and-butter data center business.
Long term, the plan is to become a real estate investment company renting server space to hyperscalers.
Applied Digital said that separating its accelerated compute platform and its data center business "will allow each business to scale independently, pursue distinct growth trajectories, and operate with greater strategic and capital flexibility."
Applied Digital broke ground in September on Polaris Forge 2, a $3 billion, 280-megawatt (MW) “AI Factory” near Harwood, North Dakota..
The facility is designed to expand beyond its initial 280MW, with the first stage set to be operational in 2026 and full capacity expected by 2027.
Polaris Forge 2 is Applied Digital’s second major site in North Dakota, joining its Polaris Forge 1 campus in Ellendale.
EKSO Bionics is a developer of exoskeleton solutions, using advanced robotics for medical and industrial applications. The company plans to explore the possible sale of all or nearly all of its current business after ChronoScale launches.
EKSO indicated in its third quarter earnings report that it was pursuing strategic transactions to sell off a significant portion of its business and/or explore acquisitions with companies in a different industry than its own.
Building infrastructure to meet AI compute demands
Both Applied Digital and EKSO will continue to operate independently of each other outside of its new combined company.
“ChronoScale is intended to bring together a proven operating platform and a clear mandate: deliver accelerated compute at scale for the most demanding AI workloads,” Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins said in a statement.
“As AI workloads continue to reshape the digital economy and intensify, infrastructure must be purpose-built, not generalized — and ChronoScale’s design is intended to meet these requirements.”
Applied Digital Cloud will allow the ChronoScale platform to rapidly deploy and scale next-generation GPU-based compute infrastructure.
Applied Digital claims that it was one of the first companies to deploy NVIDIA's H100 GPUs at scale, noting that the business generated a twelve-month revenue of approximately $75.2 million as of August 31, 2025.
This reflects "strong, growing demand from enterprise and AI-native customers for dedicated accelerated compute delivered through cloud-based platforms," the company said.
EKSO's stock soared nearly 93.8% on news of the deal. Applied Digital's shares fell 2.9% on Tuesday, but its stock has surged 215.2% for the year.
“This Proposed Transaction emanates from our previously announced initiative to evaluate and explore strategic alternatives,” EKSO CEO Scott Davis said in a statement.
“We approached our review thoughtfully and with an aim to maximize shareholder value, and we believe the proposed transaction has the potential to achieve that goal and that the proposed transaction is in the best interest of EKSO’s stakeholders.”