A Single AI Data Center Lease Just Locked In Up to $3.2…

Editor's note: This article has been republished from its original version. Certain sections have been supplemented with a summary, key facts and answers to common questions, each drawn from and verified against the original release. Article also has sponsored disclosure at bottom. The original article can be viewed here.

Key Facts

A landmark long-term lease. Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC) announced that Host Digital Infrastructure LLC secured a 15-year, take-or-pay lease representing approximately $1.25 billion in contracted revenue over the base term, and approximately $3.2 billion if all renewal options are exercised over a 30-year total term.
Energized capacity, real scale. The lease covers 43 MW of critical IT load at Host Digital's currently energized data center facility in northeast Oklahoma, with delivery to the tenant expected in the first half of 2027.
A blue-chip counterparty structure. The tenant is described as one of the world's largest privately held cloud infrastructure companies, and the lease is expected to be supported by a backstop from a U.S.-based, investment-grade global technology company.
The public vehicle. HCWC stockholders approved all proposals required to complete the previously announced merger with Host Digital; the companies expect to close in September, after which Host Digital becomes a wholly owned subsidiary and the combined company expects to trade on the NYSE American under the symbol HOST.
A disciplined development model. Host Digital's strategy centers on securing near-term energized power, targeting right-sized sites of roughly 20 MW to 100 MW, and contracting with strong or credit-enhanced counterparties before deploying significant capital.

Companies Mentioned

Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC)
IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN)
Applied Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: APLD)
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA)
CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWV)

NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equity Insider News Commentary - The scarcest commodity in artificial intelligence right now is not talent or even chips. It is power-ready real estate: sites with energized electrical capacity, cooling, and interconnection rights that can host the enormous compute clusters AI demands, available on the timeline the market needs them. That scarcity is what turns a single, well-located data center into a long-term, contracted cash-flow machine, and it is why a wave of specialized infrastructure operators has raced to lock up power and land ahead of demand. This week, one such operator preparing for a public-market debut disclosed a lease that shows just how large those contracts have become.

What Was Announced

Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC) announced that Host Digital, a pure-play, vertically integrated digital infrastructure platform focused on AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data centers, had secured a 15-year lease with one of the world's largest privately held cloud infrastructure companies. According to the company's release, the long-term, committed, take-or-pay agreement represents approximately $1.25 billion in contracted revenue over the 15-year base term and covers 43 MW of critical IT load capacity at Host Digital's currently energized facility in northeast Oklahoma, with the lease expected to be supported by a backstop from a U.S.-based, investment-grade global technology company.

The company added that the lease includes annual rent escalators and renewal options, and represents approximately $3.2 billion in contracted revenue if all renewal options are exercised over a 30-year total term, with delivery to the tenant expected in the first half of 2027 and customary rent-abatement terms for outages in line with other data center leases. The company also disclosed that HCWC stockholders had approved all proposals required to complete the previously announced merger with Host Digital, satisfying a key condition to closing, with the merger expected to complete in September, subject to remaining conditions. Host Digital is not starting from the ground up: it is bringing an already energized facility and a contracted anchor tenant into the public vehicle.

“Host Digital is approaching its public market debut with 43 MW of critical IT load committed under a 15-year take-or-pay lease, representing approximately $1.25 billion in base-term contracted revenue,” said Shawn Matthews, who is expected to serve as Chairman of the combined company following closing, in the company's release. “This is the model we intend to scale: secure near-term, energized power; focus on right-sized sites; and contract with strong or credit-enhanced counterparties before deploying significant capital.”

Chief Executive Officer Harmol Samra added in the release that “power-ready sites capable of meeting AI deployment timelines are increasingly scarce,” framing the company's task as converting that advantage into delivered capacity in early 2027 and scaling a repeatable model for leading AI and HPC customers. Investors following the story can track it through Equity Insider.

Why Power-Ready Sites Command Billion-Dollar Contracts

The economics behind the lease reflect a broader reordering of the AI supply chain. Training and running large AI models requires vast, dense clusters of chips, and those clusters need electricity and cooling at a scale that the grid cannot deliver on short notice in most locations. As a result, the bottleneck has shifted from compute to power and the physical shell around it. Operators that already control energized sites, with interconnection rights and utility agreements in place, can offer AI tenants something they cannot easily get elsewhere: capacity on a timeline that matches their deployment plans.

Host Digital's model leans directly into that scarcity. By owning and controlling each facility's core infrastructure, from land, buildings, and interconnection rights to electrical systems and cooling, while tenants control the compute and model layers, the company positions itself as the landlord of the AI era rather than a compute reseller. A 15-year take-or-pay lease with a large cloud counterparty, credit-enhanced by an investment-grade backstop, is the financial expression of that position: long-dated, contracted revenue tied to an asset that is scarce by definition.

The AI Infrastructure Landscape

Host Digital would be a small, newly public entrant in a field that now includes some of the most closely watched names in technology. The companies below are referenced solely as market and sector context. They are vastly larger and at materially different stages than Host Digital and the combined company, are not peers, competitors, or financial comparables, and their results are not indicative of the combined company's prospects. All figures are approximate and subject to change.

NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA)

NVIDIA designs the graphics processing units that sit at the center of virtually every large AI deployment, and its chips are the compute that data centers like Host Digital's are built to house. The company has also become a capital force in the sector, having disclosed a large AI investment fund that extends financing across the neocloud and AI-infrastructure landscape. It is referenced to illustrate the demand engine behind AI data centers, an enormously larger company operating at a completely different layer of the stack from a data center landlord.

NVIDIA remains the definitional AI-hardware company and a central driver of the buildout that makes power-ready data center capacity valuable. It is referenced only as sector context, and its scale and results are not indicative of the combined company's prospects.

CoreWeave, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRWV)

CoreWeave is one of the largest pure-play AI cloud providers in the public markets, renting out GPU compute at scale and reporting a revenue backlog that runs into the tens of billions of dollars. It sits closer to the cloud-and-compute layer than Host Digital's landlord model, but it illustrates the magnitude of contracted AI demand that underpins the entire data center buildout.

CoreWeave has become a benchmark name for the neocloud trade, though its capital-intensive, balance-sheet-heavy model carries significant debt and financing considerations. It is referenced only as market and sector context, a far larger company at a different layer of the stack than the combined company, and not as a comparable.

IREN Limited (Nasdaq: IREN)

IREN began as a bitcoin-mining operation and has pivoted to AI and HPC infrastructure, converting its power-rich sites into GPU-hosting capacity. It recently landed a multiyear AI cloud contract with a major chipmaker alongside a substantial associated investment tied to scaling toward hundreds of thousands of GPUs, making it one of the more visible miner-to-AI transitions and a useful reference for the power-site-conversion model.

IREN began as a bitcoin-mining operation and has pivoted to AI and HPC infrastructure, converting its power-rich sites into GPU-hosting capacity.

IREN's shares have been highly volatile even amid large contract announcements, reflecting the market's sensitivity to financing and delivery risk across the sector. It is referenced only as sector context, a separate company with its own model and risk profile, and not as a comparable to the combined company.

Applied Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: APLD)

Applied Digital designs and operates purpose-built HPC data centers and leases capacity to AI customers, a model conceptually close to Host Digital's landlord approach. The company has reported hundreds of megawatts under contract representing billions of dollars in prospective lease revenue, and posted a substantial revenue beat in a recent quarter.

Applied Digital is among the more direct public analogues to the contracted-capacity data center model, though it too operates at far greater scale and carries its own financing and execution risks. It is referenced solely as market and sector context, a larger and more established company than the combined company, and not as a peer or financial comparable.

The Bottom Line

A $1.25 billion lease, with up to $3.2 billion in potential value, is a striking anchor for a company about to enter the public markets through a merger, and it speaks directly to how scarce power-ready AI capacity has become. That said, the combined company will be small and newly public, the merger has remaining closing conditions, and delivery of the Oklahoma capacity is not expected until 2027, with financing, execution, and renewal-exercise risks all still ahead. Contracted revenue is not the same as delivered revenue, and rent-abatement and other lease provisions can affect the total. This is a description of a company and its sector, not a prediction about its stock or a recommendation of any kind. But with AI infrastructure demand intensifying and an energized, contracted asset heading into a public vehicle, it is a story worth following through Equity Insider as it develops.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the value of the lease that Host Digital Infrastructure secured?

The lease represents approximately $1.25 billion in contracted revenue over the 15-year base term and approximately $3.2 billion in contracted revenue if all renewal options are exercised over a 30-year total term.

How much capacity does the Oklahoma data center lease cover?

The lease covers 43 MW of critical IT load capacity at Host Digital's energized facility in northeast Oklahoma.

When is the leased capacity expected to be delivered?

Delivery to the tenant is expected in the first half of 2027.

Who is the tenant in this data center lease?

The tenant is described as one of the world's largest privately held cloud infrastructure companies, and the lease is expected to be supported by a backstop from a U.S.-based, investment-grade global technology company.

When will the merger between Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and Host Digital close?

HCWC stockholders approved all proposals required to complete the merger, which the companies expect to close in September, after which Host Digital becomes a wholly owned subsidiary and the combined company expects to trade on NYSE American under the symbol HOST.

What is Host Digital's business strategy?

Host Digital's strategy centers on securing near-term energized power, targeting right-sized sites of roughly 20 MW to 100 MW, and contracting with strong or credit-enhanced counterparties before deploying significant capital.

Sources & Filings

Originally distributed via GlobeNewswire: A Single AI Data Center Lease Just Locked In Up to $3.2 Billion, and a Tiny Public Company Is About to Inherit It

Verify statements about the companies above against their own filings:

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Article Sources:

[1] Healthy Choice Wellness Corp., “Host Digital Secures $1.25 Billion, 15-Year AI Data Center Lease,” August 31, 2026 (lease terms, capacity, counterparty structure, merger status, development model, and executive commentary), at www.hcwc.com and www.hostdigital.ai.

[2] Public disclosures and market data of the referenced companies (NVIDIA, CoreWeave, IREN, and Applied Digital) as cited in the body of this article.

[3] Industry reporting on AI and HPC data center demand, power-constrained capacity, and neocloud infrastructure.

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This article is being distributed by Equity Insider, which is wholly owned and operated by Market Equities Limited (“MEL”), a company incorporated under the laws of Ireland. MEL has been paid a fee for Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. advertising and digital media from Creative Direct Marketing Group (“CDMG”). MEL also expects to receive further compensation in the future as part of an ongoing digital media effort to increase visibility for the company. This compensation constitutes a conflict of interest as to our ability to remain objective in our communication regarding the profiled company. Because of this conflict, individuals are strongly encouraged not to use this publication as the basis for any investment decision. No further notice will be given, but let this disclaimer serve as notice that all material, including this article, has been reviewed and approved on behalf of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. by CDMG.

MEL and its owner(s) and operator(s) do not own any shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp., but reserve the right to buy and sell shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. at any time without any further notice commencing immediately and ongoing, in the open market, through private placements, and/or through other investment vehicles. There may also be third parties who hold shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and may liquidate their shares, which could have a negative effect on the price of the stock.

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References to NVIDIA Corporation, CoreWeave, Inc., IREN Limited and Applied Digital Corporation are provided solely as market and sector context. Those companies are not peers, competitors, or financial comparables of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp., Host Digital Infrastructure LLC, or the combined company. They are vastly larger and at materially different stages of development and scale, operate different businesses and models, and their revenue, products, and share performance are not indicative of the combined company's prospects. No partnership, affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement is implied, and none of them has any involvement in Healthy Choice Wellness Corp., Host Digital, this article, or its distribution.

Readers are cautioned that investing in companies involved in mergers and early-stage infrastructure development is highly speculative and carries a high degree of risk. The proposed merger between Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and Host Digital Infrastructure LLC remains subject to remaining closing conditions and may not be completed on the expected timeline or at all. The lease described is subject to delivery, financing, and performance risk; contracted revenue figures, including the approximately $1.25 billion base-term and approximately $3.2 billion total-potential figures, depend on delivery of capacity, the exercise of renewal options, and other conditions, and rent-abatement and other provisions may reduce revenue. Delivery of the northeast Oklahoma capacity is expected in 2027 and may be delayed. Statements regarding the combined company's name, listing, leadership, ownership, and business model are expectations, not achieved results. Please refer to HCWC's definitive proxy statement and its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov for a full discussion of risk factors.

Eagle Eye is an investor signal-intelligence platform affiliated with the publisher of this article, and this reference constitutes promotion of an affiliated product. Eagle Eye is not a broker-dealer, and nothing in the platform or in this article is financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Data provided in the platform is for informational purposes only and may be delayed.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and applicable to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies (including the merger, the lease and its contracted and potential values, delivery timing, listing, and business model) and are generally preceded by words such as “may”, “will”, “expects”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “estimates”, “plans”, “potential” or similar expressions. You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected, including merger-completion, financing, development, delivery, and counterparty risks, and other risks disclosed in HCWC's filings with the SEC. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are made as of the date hereof, and Equity Insider undertakes no obligation to update them except as required by law.

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A Single AI Data Center Lease Just Locked In Up to $3.2 Billion, and a Tiny Public Company Is About to Inherit It