(Reuters) – Investment bank Macquarie will invest up to $5 billion in Applied Digital’s AI data centers and take a 15 percent stake in the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, sending the technology company’s shares more than 30% in pre-market trading. .

The boom in artificial intelligence has pushed companies to invest heavily in technology capable of processing large amounts of data.

Asset management group Macquarie has agreed to invest up to $900 million in a data center campus that Applied Digital is developing in North Dakota, according to the report.

It also has the right of first refusal to invest an additional $4.1 billion in future company data centers over 30 months, according to the WSJ report.

Applied Digital and Macquarie did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

The new financing will be used to pay down the debt Applied Digital took on to build the North Dakota facility and will allow it to recoup more than $300 million of its equity investment, according to the report.

Shares of Applied Digital have more than tripled in the past two years as investors bet on AI companies and data center providers to deliver strong growth levels.

Microsoft said earlier this month that it would invest about $80 billion in AI data centers by fiscal 2025 to meet growing computing needs.

Applied Digital will report its second quarter results on Tuesday after the markets close.

(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Maju Samuel)