Cryptocurrency data center business Applied Digital has taken out a loan to help fund its expansion into the high-performance computing (HPC) sector.

Applied Digital, previously Applied Blockchain, has obtained a $20 million unsecured loan with a two-year term at a 12.5 percent interest rate.

The company has also secured $16 million in site-level financing for its Jamestown HPC facility, which it says is expected to close in the coming weeks.

“This capital will allow us to continue building our new Ellendale HPC facility and meet our schedule while we finalize our larger project-level financing," Applied Digital CFO David Rench said.

"It is a continued endorsement of the strength of our business and growth trajectory."

Shares in the company are down more than 40 percent over the past six months - but grew slightly on news of the loan.

Applied Digital has traditionally built and operated data centers for cryptocurrency mining - the company did not mine itself, but rented space to miners. It is now moving into HPC and AI, looking to follow a similar pathway to CoreWeave, which was valued at $7bn in late 2023.

This has meant building new facilities with higher cooling requirements and acquiring its own GPUs - both capital-intensive projects.