IREN, a Sydney company that started out mining bitcoin, now rents AI chips to customers such as Microsoft and NVIDIA from its own data centres in Texas and Canada. In April to June, its AI cloud brought in more revenue than bitcoin for the first time.
Its shares have had a harder year, as investors question how neoclouds like IREN pay for their growth. On October 26 they fell to a one-year low of $23.72 during trading, after Elon Musk warned that most neoclouds would not survive. The next day they jumped 7.9% when Anthropic’s IPO filing lifted neocloud stocks, closing at $27.44. That is still down more than a quarter since January, and values IREN at about $10.8bn.
What Does IREN Do?
IREN rents out AI computing power: time on NVIDIA and AMD chips in data centres it builds and owns, sold by the hour or on contracts of several years. It calls itself a “vertically integrated” AI cloud: it builds the data centres, buys the chips and sells the computing.
That sets it apart from neoclouds such as CoreWeave, which rents space from landlords including Core Scientific and Applied Digital. IREN runs its own sites in British Columbia and a campus in Childress, Texas, planned for 750MW. It also has much bigger sites planned in Texas and Oklahoma, and further sites in South Australia and Spain.
Bitcoin paid for its first sites. The brothers Daniel and Will Roberts founded the company as Iris Energy in 2018, listed it on Nasdaq in 2021 and renamed it IREN in 2024. At the end of June it still mined bitcoin on about 380MW of power. However, it is retiring the machines and aims to largely complete the move to AI by the end of 2026.
AI cloud revenue rose from $7.3m in July to September 2025 to $70.5m in April to June 2026. Meanwhile, bitcoin revenue fell from $232.9m to $66.7m.
Is IREN a Neocloud?
IREN is a neocloud: it rents AI chips to AI developers and is not one of the big three clouds, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It came eighth in our ranking of the biggest neocloud companies by power actually running.
Its closest listed rivals are CoreWeave and Nebius, the Amsterdam neocloud worth about four times as much. Others, such as Crusoe and Fluidstack, are still private, and we track which of them could list next.
Who Are IREN’s Customers?
Microsoft is the biggest. In November 2025 it signed a contract worth about $9.7bn over five years, for NVIDIA GB300 chips in four 50MW halls at Childress. Microsoft pays 20% up front, and IREN is buying the equipment from Dell for about $5.8bn.
IREN handed over the first hall in August. The second was being commissioned in late August, and the last two are due by the end of 2026. Microsoft can cancel if IREN misses its delivery dates, after a period to fix any delay.
NVIDIA followed in May. It agreed to pay about $3.4bn over five years for IREN to run about 60MW of Blackwell chips at Childress. The work, for NVIDIA’s internal AI and research use, is due to ramp up from early 2027.
Other customers include Together AI, Fluidstack, Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Figure AI, Cohere and Higgsfield AI, plus an unnamed “leading frontier AI lab”. By August 26, IREN had $1bn a year of AI cloud revenue running and $4bn a year signed for capacity due in 2026. “Our 2026 capacity is largely sold out,” co-chief executive Daniel Roberts said in August.
Did NVIDIA Invest in IREN?
NVIDIA has not invested in IREN yet. It is a customer, and in May it also won the right to buy up to 30 million IREN shares at $70 each within five years. That would be an investment of up to $2.1bn. The two companies also plan up to 5GW of data centres together, led by IREN’s 2GW Sweetwater site in Texas.
However, the right comes with a condition. IREN’s annual report says it depends on the delivery of up to 600,000 GPUs, the chips AI runs on. The $70 price is also far above the $27.44 at which the shares closed on October 27. NVIDIA’s filing of its US-listed holdings at the end of June included no IREN shares.
How Much Power Does IREN Have Running?
IREN has about 90MW of AI capacity running: roughly 40MW at the end of June, plus the 50MW hall it handed to Microsoft in August. The two figures may not be measured the same way. Still, that is a small share of what it has lined up.
IREN aims to deliver about 0.3GW of IT load, the power that reaches the chips, by the end of 2026. It then aims for 0.8GW by the end of 2027. Behind that sit grid connections and agreements for about 5GW.
The biggest sites in waiting are Sweetwater, Texas (2GW), Kiowa, Oklahoma (1.6GW) and Bundey, South Australia (800MW). On October 21 IREN said it had secured grid power and a building licence for its 300MW campus in Badajoz, Spain, which it aims to open in 2028.
The targets measure IT load, while the 5GW counts grid connections and agreements, so the two are not directly comparable.
Is IREN Profitable?
IREN is not profitable. In the year to June 30, 2026, it lost $702.6m on revenue of $707m, after a profit of $86.9m the year before. In April to June alone, it lost $684m.
Most of the loss came from $638.8m of write-downs, mainly on bitcoin machines it is retiring. Before those and other non-cash items, its adjusted EBITDA, a measure of operating profit, was $245.7m for the year.
How Much Debt Does IREN Have?
About $7.7bn at the end of June. Most of it is in convertible bonds that pay little or no interest: $6.75bn across six issues due between 2029 and 2033. Against that, it held $5.9bn in cash, plus $1.7bn of restricted cash.
The cost of new money depends on the customer. Loans for the Microsoft chips, held in a separate company, carry an average rate of about 6% before fees. In August, IREN arranged $2.4bn of financing at a fixed 9.0% for chips at Mackenzie, serving customers without an investment-grade rating. Blue Owl and PIMCO led it.
IREN also sells new shares. It raised $4.7bn that way in the year to June, and in March it set up a programme to sell up to $6bn more over time. Its share count rose from 332 million in January to 394 million in August.
That is the funding model Elon Musk took aim at on October 25. He wrote that debt markets have “almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers”. Bitcoin mining, IREN’s main income outside AI data centres, is being switched off. Meanwhile, its spending commitments stood at $13.8bn at the end of June, almost all of it due within a year.
Who Owns IREN?
Its founders hold more votes than their shares alone would give them. Daniel and Will Roberts each held about 23.6 million shares and share units on July 1. Together, that is roughly 12% of the shares in issue, counting their unvested units.
A company linked to each brother also holds a special B Class share. On a poll, it carries 15 votes for every ordinary share held, plus the right to nominate a director. That lasts until 2033, or until the founder retires as a director.
The biggest outside holders on record are banks and trading firms. Goldman Sachs reported 9.4% and Bank of America 5.8% at the end of June, both measured against an older, smaller share count, and Citadel reported 4.7% in September. Such filings often cover shares held for clients or for trading, not long-term stakes.
Each co-chief executive also received 9.1 million share units on July 1, vesting over four years. Shareholders vote on pay, in an advisory vote, at the annual meeting on November 24.
When Does IREN Report Earnings?
IREN will report results for July to September on November 5, with a call at 5pm New York time. Four things to watch:
- Microsoft halls: whether the last three halls at Childress are on track for the end of 2026.
- AI revenue: how far the $1bn a year running in August has moved toward the $4bn targeted for December 31.
- Bitcoin: how much mining is left, and what retiring it costs.
- Funding: new loans and share sales, and at what price.
Author: Akos Szima
See Also:
The 10 Biggest Neocloud Companies, Ranked by Power Actually Live
What Is Nebius? The AI Cloud Now Worth More Than CoreWeave
Neocloud IPO Tracker: Who Has Filed, Who Pulled Out, Who Is Next
How We Checked This:
Sources: IREN’s annual report for the year to June 30, 2026, its quarterly results releases, SEC filings and company announcements to October 28, 2026, and the closing price on October 27. The running power, market value and founders’ combined stake are our arithmetic. The full dataset has a source for every number. Change log: October 28, 2026, first published.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Sydney, Australia. Its data centres are in Texas and British Columbia, with sites planned in Oklahoma, South Australia and Spain. Its shares trade on Nasdaq under the ticker IREN.
Yes, but it is stopping. Bitcoin brought in 49% of its revenue in April to June 2026, and IREN aims to largely complete moving its sites to AI cloud by the end of 2026.
Iris Energy. Founded in 2018, it listed on Nasdaq in November 2021, rebranded as IREN in February 2024 and changed its legal name in November 2024.
This article is based on company filings, announcements, market data and news reports and is not investment advice. MRKT 3.0 has no commercial relationship with any company named above.
