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Bitcoin miner Iren stock jumps after $9.7b Microsoft AI deal

• ByStartupStory     |    November 11, 2025

Australian bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure company IREN saw its stock surge sharply after announcing a landmark $9.7 billion five-year cloud computing agreement with Microsoft. Under the deal, Microsoft will gain access to Nvidia’s GB300 GPUs hosted at IREN’s data centers in Childress, Texas, fueling its AI expansion plans.

This agreement makes Microsoft IREN’s largest customer and marks a significant pivot from cryptocurrency mining to AI cloud services, reflecting the broader trend of bitcoin miners converting their power and data center assets for artificial intelligence workloads. The contract includes a 20% prepayment from Microsoft, projected to generate $1.9 billion annually in recurring revenue for IREN once fully operational.

IREN also revealed a separate $5.8 billion procurement agreement with Dell Technologies for GPUs and related equipment to support its infrastructure build-out through 2026. These deals accelerate IREN’s shift to becoming a leading AI cloud provider leveraging renewable-powered data centers.

The news triggered strong market enthusiasm, with IREN shares soaring up to 21% shortly after the announcement, reaching record highs around $73 per share. For 2025, IREN’s stock has risen approximately 600% year-to-date as investor sentiment favors its transformation.

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity described the Microsoft deal as a “game changer,” increasing IREN’s price target to $70 from $42 and highlighting the deal’s potential to deliver a levered internal rate of return of 32%. The contract positions IREN to fund about half of its $3 billion Horizon data center expansion project.

IREN co-founder and CEO Daniel Roberts emphasized the strategic significance of the partnership, stating it validates IREN as a trusted AI infrastructure provider and unlocks access to major hyperscale customers globally.

This transition illustrates a structural shift within the bitcoin mining industry toward AI-focused infrastructure services, driven by escalating demand for compute capacity in advanced AI model training and inference. With AI adoption surging across industries, companies like IREN that possess secure grid power and large-scale data center capacity are uniquely positioned to serve this burgeoning market.

In summary, Microsoft’s $9.7 billion contract with IREN represents a watershed moment for the bitcoin mining sector’s pivot to AI infrastructure. It boosts IREN’s revenue outlook, enhances its market positioning, and fuels optimism for sustained growth driven by AI’s expanding role in cloud computing.

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