New York, Feb 18, 2026, 05:06 ET — Premarket
- Applied Digital dropped 4.8% in premarket trading, missing from Nvidia’s latest regulatory filing.
- Back in its November 2025 filing, Nvidia listed a stake of 7.7 million shares in Applied Digital.
- Applied Digital laid out details of a plan to merge its cloud division with Ekso Bionics, creating a new entity called ChronoScale.
Shares of Applied Digital dropped 4.8% to $33.56 before the bell Wednesday, with pressure building after Nvidia’s newest filing revealed the chipmaker had exited its stake in the data-center firm. (Sec)
This shift is significant: Nvidia had been seen as a marquee supporter of Applied Digital, so news that its stake may no longer be there can quickly rattle sentiment—even though the filing only shows past positions. (Sec)
Nvidia’s Form 13F, filed on Feb. 17, showed stakes in CoreWeave, Intel, Nebius Group, Nokia and Synopsys. Notably absent: Applied Digital. (Sec)
Nvidia’s earlier 13F showed it held 7,716,050 Applied Digital shares, a stake worth roughly $177 million as of Sept. 30, 2025. (Sec)
Darren Aftahi at Roth Capital called the firm “buying shares” as the stock tumbled, describing the decline as driven by “headline risk than any fundamental change” in the story. (TipRanks)
Aftahi noted the company has inked colocation deals with both CoreWeave and a hyperscaler, and is anticipating a third lease to follow an earlier financing round led by Nvidia. (TipRanks)
Applied Digital filed an 8-K Tuesday, detailing a deal that shifts its cloud division into Ekso Bionics. Ekso plans to adopt a new name: ChronoScale. The company focuses on data centers built for high-performance computing.
Applied Digital’s subsidiary is set to fold its Cloud business into the deal, picking up 138,216,820 freshly issued Ekso shares in return. That haul would hand it roughly 97% ownership of the merged company, ahead of any additional planned transactions.
According to the filing, the deal hinges on several conditions: approval from Ekso shareholders, a proxy or information statement cleared by the SEC, an application for listing on Nasdaq, and Ekso having no less than $15 million in cash and cash equivalents—counting funds raised through a PIPE financing.
Still, two big caveats jump out. Nvidia’s 13F only shows holdings as of Dec. 31, 2025—not its current book. As for Applied Digital’s ChronoScale agreement, it comes with a laundry list of hurdles that could delay or derail the deal. (Sec)
The filing indicated the deal can be called off if the business combination isn’t wrapped up by July 15, 2026, along with several other conditions.
Investors are eyeing whether this bout of selling extends into the regular session. The next round of deal documents is also on their radar: a proxy or information statement, plus anything on the PIPE terms, could appear as the ChronoScale timeline gets clearer.
