On Tuesday, state and company officials grabbed the ceremonial shovels and broke ground on a $3.6 billion Applied Digital AI factory campus just outside Boyce in Rapides Parish. The project, branded Delta Forge 1, is expected to begin initial operations in mid-2027 and will add around 200 direct, full-time jobs alongside more than 1,000 construction positions at peak build. Officials framed the announcement as another major investment in central Louisiana’s push to attract large-scale AI infrastructure.
What’s Being Built
According to a news release from Louisiana Economic Development, Delta Forge 1 will initially include two facilities delivering roughly 300 megawatts of critical IT load across about 300 acres and will use Applied Digital’s closed-loop cooling to support high-density AI compute. The release says the campus is purpose-built for training and inference workloads and will be constructed with direct access to local energy infrastructure. LED estimates the project will generate dozens of indirect vendor and supplier opportunities across the region.
Power, Jobs and Local Impact
Governor Jeff Landry highlighted the payroll and said the project will create 200 direct positions paying approximately $90,000 a year, according to local coverage by WDSU. Cleco, the local utility, will provide power to the campus, and company and parish leaders called the investment transformative for central Louisiana, per reporting by WBRZ. Company materials say site work began in January 2026 and that initial operations are scheduled for mid-2027.
Approvals and Incentives
Public records compiled by Louisiana AI Signals show the England Economic & Industrial Development District approved a resolution on April 23 authorizing a PILOT term sheet for the project, a structuring step that remains subject to a final Cooperative Endeavor Agreement. State materials also note Applied Digital qualified for the sales-and-use tax exemption created under Act 730 of 2024, an incentive that has helped lure other big data-center investments to the state. Those incentives, officials say, are intended to drive local contracting and workforce development.
How This Fits Into Louisiana’s AI Buildout
The Delta Forge announcement comes as the state accommodates other major AI campuses, most notably Meta’s Hyperion project in Richland Parish, developments that have already prompted widescale planning for new generation and transmission capacity, according to reporting by Bloomberg. For local officials, the Applied Digital campus adds another set of long-term vendor and hiring promises to a region that has been courting tech infrastructure for more than a year.
Applied Digital’s chairman and CEO Wes Cummins said in the company release that the campus is intended to be “a source of opportunity and pride for the people of Central Louisiana.” Local leaders say the coming months will focus on translating those company commitments into concrete hiring and contracting outcomes for Rapides Parish businesses, with plenty of eyes watching to see how much of the boom truly stays local.
