Issued on behalf of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. / Host Digital Infrastructure
NEW YORK, Sept. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equity Insider News Commentary - The artificial intelligence buildout has run into a wall that no amount of capital shortens. Grid interconnection queues in the largest United States markets now stretch for years, substations take years to build, and utility capacity cannot be added with a software update. The result is that the binding constraint on AI infrastructure has stopped being chips and started being electricity that is already flowing, in a place a data center can actually use it. That has made a specific and unglamorous asset extremely valuable: the energized industrial site.
Companies mentioned in today’s commentary include: Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC), IREN Limited (Nasdaq: IREN), TeraWulf Inc. (Nasdaq: WULF), Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq: HUT), and Riot Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIOT).
Key Takeaways
A contract before a listing, not after one. Host Digital Infrastructure signed a 15-year take-or-pay lease on August 7, 2026 covering approximately 43 megawatts of critical IT load at its northeast Oklahoma facility, representing approximately $1.25 billion of contracted base-term revenue, and approximately $3.2 billion if every renewal option is exercised across a possible 30-year term.
The site is already energized. The facility is an existing industrial building of nearly 80,000 square feet with existing load above 45 megawatts, rather than open ground awaiting an interconnection queue. Host Digital holds its rights under a property lease entered into on November 25, 2025.
Stockholders approved, but the merger has not closed. Holders of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. approved all proposals on August 27, 2026, including the stock issuance, an increase in authorised shares and a name change. Closing remains expected in mid-September 2026, subject to the remaining conditions.
The share count and the ticker are both in motion. A 1-for-35 reverse stock split took effect on August 28, 2026, with split-adjusted trading from August 31 under a new CUSIP. The combined company is expected to trade on NYSE American under the symbol HOST following closing, subject to exchange approval.
No revenue has been earned under the lease. Delivery to the tenant is expected in the first half of 2027 and remains subject to construction, commissioning, financing and the performance of both parties. The tenant is described as a major privately held cloud infrastructure company and has not been named.
There Is Land, And Then There Is Powered Land
The most common mistake investors make in the data center boom is treating every announced project as broadly equivalent. They are not. There is no shortage of land in America and no shortage of renderings. What is scarce is usable power, in the right place, at the right time.
A proposed greenfield project typically sits in a multiyear interconnection queue, still needs a substation built, has transmission upgrades outstanding and utility agreements unsigned, faces permitting ahead of it, and requires major construction before the first server is switched on. Its revenue is a hope attached to a date that keeps moving.
An energized brownfield site starts somewhere else entirely. The facility exists and is already drawing load, substation infrastructure is in place, and infrastructure gets reused rather than recreated. Construction timelines are shorter and interconnection and ramp-up risk is reduced. Not starting from the ground up is the whole of the advantage, and it is a real one.
AI companies think in months. Infrastructure has historically thought in years and sometimes decades. You can ship a better model overnight. You cannot construct a substation overnight, and you cannot add 50 megawatts of utility capacity with a patch. That mismatch between the speed of software and the speed of the physical world is becoming a defining feature of this cycle.
The Opening Move Was A Signed Contract
The usual small-cap sequence runs: here is our market, here is our strategy, here is what we hope to build, and here is what revenue might eventually look like. Host Digital Infrastructure, which is combining with Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC), reversed it.
The lease signed on August 7, 2026 covers approximately 43 megawatts of critical IT load at the northeast Oklahoma facility. It is structured take-or-pay, with renewal options and annual rent escalators, and represents approximately $1.25 billion of contracted revenue across the 15-year base term. If every renewal is exercised over a possible 30-year term, the Company has disclosed that figure rising to approximately $3.2 billion. Delivery is expected in the first half of 2027.
Several qualifications belong immediately alongside those numbers. The counterparty has not been publicly named. Renewal options are options rather than commitments, so the larger figure assumes a sequence of decisions that has not been made. No revenue has been recognised under the lease, and none will be until the facility is delivered and accepted. And the delivery date itself remains subject to construction, commissioning, capital availability and the performance of both parties.
The board’s own proxy materials put a frame around the valuation that is worth reading directly. They disclosed an analysis indicating annual base rent of approximately $60 million to $76 million in the first year on 40 to 47 megawatts of critical IT load, increasing 3% annually, a total 15-year contract value of approximately $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion, and an indicative valuation range of approximately $676 million to $954 million applying discount rates of approximately 5% to 6.5%. Host Digital was valued in the transaction at $425 million, which the analysis implies is a discount rate of roughly 16%. The definitive proxy statement sets this out in full.
Where The Ticker Stands Right Now
This is a moving target and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving to a footnote. Stockholders approved all proposals at the special meeting on August 27, 2026, including the stock issuance, an increase in authorised shares to two billion and a name change. That vote was a condition to completion, not completion itself. The merger is expected to close in September 2026, subject to the remaining conditions.
A 1-for-35 reverse stock split took effect at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on August 28, 2026, with the shares trading on a split-adjusted basis from the market open on August 31 under a new CUSIP. The reason for the split is structural rather than cosmetic: NYSE American treats a reverse merger as equivalent to a new listing, which means the combined entity must satisfy initial listing standards, including a minimum share price of US$4.00. That is a live condition, not a formality.
Following closing, the combined company is expected to trade on NYSE American under the symbol HOST, subject to exchange approval. Until then the shares continue to trade under HCWC. Anyone following the story should confirm the current symbol before acting, because the name, the ticker and the share count are all expected to change.
The dilution is substantial and should not be glossed. Host Digital holders are to hold approximately 96% of the combined company following an issuance of roughly 1.57 billion shares, a figure struck before the reverse split. Legacy holders retain a small minority of the resulting entity.
The Operators
Building a data center platform is not purely a real estate business, nor purely an energy, technology or capital markets business. It is all four simultaneously, and the leadership assembled here has worked at that intersection before.
Chief Executive Officer Harmol Samra helped build IPI Partners into one of the largest data center platforms in the world. By the time IPI was sold to Blue Owl in 2024, the platform included 82 data centers and more than 2.2 gigawatts of leased capacity. He also heads 10X Infrastructure Partners, a New York private equity firm specialising in data center infrastructure. Chairman Shawn Matthews brings more than three decades across capital markets, energy and infrastructure, including nearly a decade as Chief Executive Officer of Cantor Fitzgerald. John Ollet continues as Chief Financial Officer. Biographical details are as described in materials provided by the Company.
Against that, the balance sheet inherited by the listed vehicle is thin. As of June 30, 2026, prior to the combination, the public company reported cash and cash equivalents of approximately $0.9 million, negative working capital of approximately $6.6 million and net losses of approximately $6.7 million for the prior six months, and disclosed substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. Developing data center infrastructure is capital intensive, and the capital required has not yet been raised.
What The Same Trade Looks Like At Scale
The four companies below are referenced solely as market and sector context. They are larger, established, revenue-generating businesses, and none of them is a peer, competitor or financial comparable of the profiled company. They are named because each has executed a version of the same underlying trade: taking control of a site that already has power and converting it into contracted AI infrastructure. Their contracts are the clearest available evidence that the energized-site thesis is being paid for by real counterparties.
TeraWulf Inc. (Nasdaq: WULF) offers the closest structural analogue. On July 6, 2026 the company signed a 20-year lease with Anthropic for roughly 401 megawatts at its Justified Data campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, a site it acquired for $200 million in February 2026 and which had previously been used for aluminum processing. The lease is expected to generate approximately $19 billion in revenue over its term, with first power due in the second half of 2027.
An old aluminum smelter is exactly the kind of asset the energized-brownfield argument describes: heavy existing electrical infrastructure, built for an industry that no longer needs it, in a location a utility already serves. TeraWulf shares have risen sharply through 2026 on that repositioning, though the company carries meaningful leverage and the revenue remains contracted rather than earned.
IREN Limited (Nasdaq: IREN) is further along the same path and further into the financing that path requires. The company announced that Horizon 1, the first of four data centers it is building for Microsoft, was delivered and formally accepted following a testing window, clearing it to begin invoicing under a five-year contract reported at $9.7 billion. Management told investors on August 27 that 2026 AI capacity is largely sold out.
IREN is also the clearest illustration in this group of the distance between a contracted book and recognised revenue. The company defines its contracted annualized run-rate as an operating metric based on contracted pricing, and cautions that recognised GAAP revenue may be materially lower until capacity is commissioned, tested and accepted by customers. Its most recent quarter carried a large net loss driven mostly by non-cash impairments as mining hardware came offline, and the shares have lagged peers year to date despite the size of the contracted book.
Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq: HUT) signed a 15-year lease reported at $9.8 billion covering the second phase of its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas, with the shares rising sharply on the announcement. The transaction is a useful marker of how the market is currently pricing long-dated, contracted capacity attached to sites that already have power secured.
Riot Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIOT) disclosed a 20-year data center lease at its Rockdale, Texas campus on August 10, 2026 without naming the tenant, describing it only as one of the world’s leading frontier AI labs. The shares fell more than 5% after hours on the unnamed-tenant headline before rising sharply once the counterparty was reported to be Anthropic.
That sequence is instructive for anyone reading a contract announcement where the tenant is not disclosed, which is the situation at the profiled company. The market discounts an unnamed counterparty until it is identified, and the discount can reverse quickly. It can also fail to reverse. An undisclosed tenant is a genuine informational gap, not a technicality.
What To Watch
The near-term markers are procedural. Whether the merger closes in September as expected, whether NYSE American approves the combined company against initial listing standards including the US$4.00 minimum share price, and whether the ticker changes to HOST on the expected timeline. None of those is guaranteed by the stockholder vote.
After that the markers become physical: construction and commissioning progress at the Oklahoma facility, delivery to the tenant in the first half of 2027, and the first dollar of contracted rent actually recognised. Beyond the single asset, the question is whether the model repeats. One data center produces revenue. A repeatable process for finding scarce energized power, securing it, matching it with committed demand and building around it produces a platform. Nothing yet demonstrates that the second thing exists.
The broader point stands regardless of how this particular company performs. AI does not have a demand problem; it has a delivery problem. In the next phase of the buildout some of the largest winners may not be the companies creating intelligence, but the ones that give intelligence somewhere to live. Whether the profiled company is among them is entirely unproven, and it is arriving with a going-concern history, no revenue under its lease, and a corporate structure that is still changing week to week.
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CONTINUED... Read this and more news for Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. (NYSE American: HCWC) at: https://equity-insider.com
Article Sources:
[1] Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and Host Digital Infrastructure corporate disclosures, news releases and filings, including the definitive proxy statement, the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated May 27, 2026, the August 7, 2026 lease announcement, the August 27, 2026 special meeting results and the reverse stock split announcement. Filings are available on EDGAR at www.sec.gov.
[2] Public disclosures, filings and reported contract announcements of the referenced companies (IREN Limited, TeraWulf Inc., Hut 8 Corp. and Riot Platforms, Inc.) as cited in the body of this article.
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This article is being distributed for Market Equities Limited, a company incorporated under the laws of Ireland ("MEL"), which wholly owns and operates Equity Insider. MEL has been paid a fee for Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. / Host Digital advertising and digital media from Creative Direct Marketing Group ("CDMG"). MEL has not been paid a fee directly by the profiled company, and MEL is not affiliated with, and is a separate and independent entity from, CDMG and the profiled company. MEL also expects to receive further compensation as part of an ongoing digital media effort to increase visibility for the company. No further notice will be given, but let this disclaimer serve as notice that all material, including this article, has been reviewed and approved by Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and CDMG.
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MEL and its owner/operators do not own any shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp., but reserve the right to buy and sell shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. at any time without any further notice commencing immediately and ongoing, in the open market, through private placements, and/or through other investment vehicles. There may also be third parties who hold shares of Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. and may liquidate their shares, which could have a negative effect on the price of the stock.
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Cautionary Note Regarding the Merger, Listing and Capital Structure: This article describes the business of Host Digital Infrastructure LLC in connection with its pending combination with Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. pursuant to an Agreement and Plan of Merger dated May 27, 2026. Stockholders approved the stock issuance proposal, an increase in authorised shares and a name change at a special meeting held August 27, 2026, but the merger had not closed as of the date of this article and closing remains subject to the satisfaction of remaining conditions. There is no assurance the merger will be completed, or completed on the expected timeline. A 1-for-35 reverse stock split took effect August 28, 2026, with split-adjusted trading from August 31, 2026 under a new CUSIP; share counts referenced in this article that were struck in connection with the merger agreement, including the issuance of approximately 1,574,074,074 shares and the increase in authorised common shares to 2,000,000,000, were determined prior to the reverse split. Host Digital was valued at approximately $425 million in stock and pre-funded warrants, with Host Digital holders to hold approximately 96% of the combined company, resulting in substantial dilution to legacy holders. NYSE American treats a reverse merger as equivalent to an initial listing, and the combined company must satisfy initial listing standards, including a minimum share price of US$4.00; there is no assurance those standards will be satisfied or that the exchange will approve continued listing. The combined company is expected to trade under the symbol HOST following closing, subject to exchange approval, and accordingly the corporate name, share count and trading symbol may differ from those shown in this article. Readers should confirm the current trading symbol before acting and should review the definitive proxy statement and the Company’s other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in full.
Cautionary Note Regarding the Lease and the Facility: The lease described in this article was entered into on August 7, 2026 with a counterparty described as a major privately held cloud infrastructure company that has not been publicly named. Contracted revenue figures of approximately $1.25 billion over the 15-year base term and approximately $3.2 billion assuming exercise of all renewal options over a possible 30-year term are as disclosed by the Company; renewal options are options and may not be exercised. No revenue has been recognised under the lease. Delivery is expected in the first quarter of 2027 and is subject to construction, commissioning, capital availability and the performance of both parties. Host Digital holds its rights to the northeast Oklahoma facility pursuant to a property lease entered into on November 25, 2025 rather than outright fee ownership. Facility square footage, existing electrical load, valuation analyses and biographical descriptions of management are as described by the Company or in its filings and have not been independently verified by the publisher.
Cautionary Note Regarding Financial Condition: As of June 30, 2026, prior to completion of the merger, Healthy Choice Wellness Corp. reported cash and cash equivalents of approximately $0.9 million, negative working capital of approximately $6.6 million and net losses of approximately $6.7 million for the prior six-month period, and disclosed substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. The shares have experienced significant price volatility. Development of data center infrastructure is capital intensive and requires financing that has not been secured. Past share price performance is not indicative of future results.
Cautionary Note Regarding Referenced Companies: References to IREN Limited, TeraWulf Inc., Hut 8 Corp. and Riot Platforms, Inc. are provided solely as market and sector context. None of them is a peer, competitor, or financial comparable of the profiled company. They are larger, established, revenue-generating companies at a materially different stage of development and scale, and their contracts, leases, revenues, earnings and share performance are not indicative of the profiled company’s prospects. Contract values attributed to those companies are as reported and represent contracted amounts over multi-year terms rather than recognised revenue. None of the companies named has any involvement in the profiled company, this article, or its distribution. No partnership, affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement is implied, and no relationship of any kind between the profiled company and any tenant, counterparty or artificial intelligence developer referenced in connection with those companies is implied or should be inferred.
Eagle Eye Disclosure: Eagle Eye is an investor signal-intelligence platform affiliated with the publisher of this article, and this reference constitutes promotion of an affiliated product. Eagle Eye is not a broker-dealer, and nothing in the platform or in this article is financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Data provided in the platform is for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Always do your own research before making any investment decision.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This article contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding the expected completion and timing of the merger, expected exchange approval and the anticipated change of trading symbol, contracted revenue, delivery of the facility, the commencement of revenue in the first quarter of 2027, the potential replication of the Company’s model at additional sites, capital requirements, and management’s plans and objectives. Such statements are generally preceded by words such as "may", "future", "plan" or "planned", "will" or "should", "expected", "anticipates", "intends", "targeted" or "projected". You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual circumstances, events, or results to differ materially, including closing, construction, permitting, counterparty, financing, dilution, listing and market risks, and other risks identified in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov. Do not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this article are made as of the date above and Equity Insider undertakes no obligation to update them.
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