Soluna and Applied Digital have signed a definitive transaction agreement to form a jointly owned project company to develop a planned 50 MW critical IT AI and HPC data center in Texas, tied to Soluna’s Project Dorothy 3 site near Silverton in Briscoe County. The facility is planned to be co-located with the Briscoe Wind Farm and draw power from that wind resource.
Under the agreement, Soluna is expected to contribute a portion of the Dorothy 3 site, including land and power-related project assets, while Applied Digital is expected to provide development capital. After closing, Applied is expected to own 51% of the project company, with Soluna holding 49%.
Dorothy 3 is planned near Soluna’s Dorothy 1 and Dorothy 2 projects. Soluna describes Briscoe Wind as a 150 MW wind farm. Subject to definitive documentation, Phase 1 of Dorothy 3—described as 50 MW of critical IT—is expected to draw power from both Briscoe Wind and the grid.
For data center engineers, the details that matter most here are the “critical IT” capacity and the power sourcing structure. A 50 MW critical IT build is squarely in high-density territory for AI and HPC, where power availability, substation and interconnect work, and step-by-step energization schedules tend to dictate construction tempo as much as the building itself. The planned blend of wind generation and grid supply also implies operators should expect the usual interlock between onsite power deliverability, contractual power arrangements, and commissioning sequencing.
On the customer side, ChronoScale Holdings Corporation—described as a publicly traded company majority-owned by Applied Digital—has signed a non-binding letter of intent for a triple-net lease of the planned facility. Any lease remains subject to negotiating and executing definitive documentation, and there’s no assurance a final lease is executed.
Closing of the transactions is subject to conditions, including approval of a tax abatement for the project in Briscoe County, receipt of title policies, corporate approvals, negotiation and execution of the project company operating agreement, and completing definitive leases, power agreements, and other definitive documents. The companies expect closing by the end of the calendar year.
John Belizaire, Soluna’s CEO, said, “We have said for a long time that the constraint in AI is energy access, not chips.”
Soluna and Applied Digital did not disclose facility design details such as cooling architecture, targeted rack densities, or electrical topology in the information released, so the near-term takeaway is the project structure, the 50 MW Phase 1 sizing, and the conditional path to close.
Source: Soluna
