BASX Supplies Custom Cooling System for Applied Digital AI Facility

BASX, a subsidiary of AAON, Inc., has developed a customized free cooling chiller system for Applied Digital Corporation’s aI data center campus in Ellendale, North Dakota. The system is installed at the company’s Polaris Forge 1 site and is designed to meet the thermal demands of high-performance computing infrastructure in cold climates.

The BASX system operates in three cooling modes without using water. In Full Free Cooling mode, the system uses pumps and fans to reject 100% of the IT load. In Partial Free Cooling mode, it supplements ambient air cooling with direct expansion (DX) as needed. In Full Mechanical Cooling mode, it engages compressors and coils to provide full DX capacity during peak ambient temperatures.

Polaris Forge 1 supports NVIDIA liquid-cooled GPUs and requires significantly higher power density than traditional data centers. According to Applied Digital, such AI factories may demand 15 to 30 times more power than standard facilities.

"As a leading provider of AI factories... BASX engineered, designed, and built a world-class system that we are deploying at our Polaris Forge 1 site," said Todd Gale, Chief Development Officer at Applied Digital.

"From the onset, this was about more than delivering standard HVAC... we responded with a system engineered from the ground up to meet it," said Matt Tobolski, PhD – AAON CEO & BASX Co-Founder.