In this episode, Wes Cummins, Founder and CEO of Applied Digital, shares how a journey that began on a 200-person Idaho potato farm led to building some of the largest AI-optimized data center campuses in the world. From early days as a tech investor to pioneering high-density infrastructure in America’s rural heartland, Wes offers an inside look at the speed, scale, and conviction required to stay ahead in the AI era.
Today’s guest, Wes Cummins, leads Applied Digital—a company transforming small agricultural towns into next-generation digital infrastructure hubs. His path from semiconductor investing to deploying hundreds of megawatts of high-performance compute shows a rare blend of foresight, grit, and relentless execution.
Wes explains how Applied Digital’s early bet on AI-class data centers, tight partnerships with Nvidia and hyperscalers, and rapid-build design cycles created a true competitive edge. He breaks down why the industry underestimated the real bottleneck—not GPUs, but power-dense data center capacity—and how Applied Digital moved years ahead of the curve by securing supply chain, power, cooling, and land long before demand went parabolic. Wes also pulls back the curtain on building in rural America, highlighting how these projects create high-quality jobs, transform school districts, and generate new economic engines for communities long overlooked by the digital economy.
With a passion for innovation, Wes shares what excites him most—from liquid cooling and 800-volt power distribution to 5+ gigawatt campuses and the push toward 100% GPU utilization across training and inference. His underdog culture, obsession with solving hard problems, and commitment to future-proof engineering reveal the mindset behind Applied Digital’s rapid ascent.
From massive-scale buildouts to leadership lessons, this episode is packed with insight for anyone building, investing in, or simply fascinated by the infrastructure powering the AI revolution.
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