IREN Stock News: Microsoft Signs $9.7B AI Cloud Deal With Bitcoin Mining Stalwart
Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion deal with IREN for AI cloud capacity, causing IREN's stock to surge over 30% premarket.Summary
Microsoft announced a five-year, $9.7 billion purchase agreement with IREN for AI cloud capacity, marking a significant validation for the emerging neocloud sector composed of former Bitcoin mining firms.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will gain access to Nvidia GB300-based AI systems hosted in Texas. IREN, which is transitioning its energy-intensive infrastructure from Bitcoin mining to AI workloads, will purchase $5.8 billion in GPUs from Dell Technologies and expects nearly $1.9 billion in annualized revenue from the Microsoft deal.
The news caused IREN’s shares to jump more than 30% in premarket trading, extending its nearly 500% year-to-date gain, highlighting the trend of miners' hardware fleets becoming strategic compute assets for meeting the high demand for Azure AI services amid global GPU shortages.
(Source：CoinDesk)