(Corrects paragraph 1 to say Macquarie will take a stake in Applied Digital's high-performance computing unit, not the whole company. The error was there in previous versions of the story; Removes reference to valuation of 15% stake in Applied Digital and Macquarie's shareholding in the company)(Reuters) -Australia's Macquarie on Tuesday agreed to take a 15% stake in Applied Digital's high-performance computing business and invest up to $5 billion in the company's artificial intelligence data centers amid booming AI demand.

Investment firm Macquarie is to invest billions of dollars into data center firm Applied Digital. First reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the company, Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) is set to invest $5 billion into Applied, a cryptomining firm pivoting to AI and HPC data centers.

Funds managed by MAM have entered into a perpetual preferred equity financing agreement by investing up to $900m in Applied Digital’s Ellendale HPC data centre campus in a deal that allows for the investment of up to an additional $4.1bn across Applied Digital’s future HPC data centre pipeline.