Major cryptocurrency mining firm IREN saw its stock price rise by 5.5% following reports that it signed a multi-year cloud computing contract with AI developer Anthropic. This development is underpinned by a global shortage of power and data centers driven by the rapid adoption of AI, highlighting a structural market shift in which crypto miners with access to electrical grids are rapidly transforming into AI infrastructure providers.

IREN Shares Up 5.5% on Major Cloud Deal with Anthropic

In October 2026, shares of Nasdaq-listed IREN rose 5.5% following reports that it had signed a multi-year cloud computing services agreement with AI startup Anthropic. At one point during overnight trading, the company’s shares were pushed up by 9.01% to around $38 from the previous close of $35.19. In an announcement in August 2026, IREN had disclosed that it had entered into a multi-year AI cloud contract with a major frontier AI lab, anticipating approximately $4 billion in annualized revenue for facility capacity scheduled to go online in 2026, but the latest reports revealed that the counterparty was Anthropic. As demand overheats for data centers providing the advanced computing resources required for generative AI training and inference, partnerships between AI companies and infrastructure owners are accelerating. The following chart illustrates the capital inflows into the AI market and the surge in data center demand.

Under this agreement, Anthropic will leverage IREN’s advanced data center infrastructure and GPU computing resources to enhance the development of its large language models.

Track Record with Existing Major Enterprise Customers and Business Transformation from Bitcoin Mining

IREN was originally Iris Energy, a renewable energy-driven Bitcoin mining company founded in Sydney in 2018 by brothers Daniel Roberts and William Roberts, but it changed its name to IREN in late 2024 and has been accelerating its restructuring into an AI infrastructure company. In November 2025, the company announced a five-year, approximately $9.7 billion agreement with Microsoft to provide access to NVIDIA GB300 graphics processors, and has been advancing the deployment of high-density data centers at its Childress, Texas campus. For the fiscal year ending June 2026, the company’s AI cloud division revenue surged from $16.4 million in the previous year to $128.8 million, with AI cloud revenue reaching $70.5 million in the most recent fourth quarter alone. The company has set a goal to proceed with the removal of its cryptocurrency mining equipment by December 31, 2026, and to reallocate virtually all of its power and facility capacity to AI computing purposes.

The Structural Reasons Why Bitcoin Miners Are Entering AI and HPC Infrastructure

The Explosive Growth of Electricity Demand and the Limits of Traditional Data Centers

Due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), data center power demand is surging to unprecedented levels. According to forecasts by Goldman Sachs Research, U.S. data center power demand is expected to grow from 21 GW in 2024 to 45 GW by 2030, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% and consuming approximately 8% of total U.S. power capacity. However, traditional data centers built for video streaming and cloud storage have low power density per rack and cannot accommodate the ultra-high-density designs required for AI computing. While the average rack density around 2020 was approximately 8.4 kW per rack, cutting-edge AI systems like NVIDIA’s GB200 NVL72 require a power supply of 132 kW or more per rack. Furthermore, a flood of applications for new connections to regional power grids has caused grid capacity shortages, resulting in 2-to-4-year delays in grid interconnection and construction completion for new data centers, which has become a severe bottleneck.

The Strengths of Large-Scale Power Infrastructure and Repurposing Capabilities Held by Mining Operations

While traditional data center developers struggle to secure power over multi-year horizons, Bitcoin miners already hold powerful assets that AI hyperscalers desperately want. In search of cheap power, miners have spent years securing hundreds of megawatts in transmission and distribution contracts, substation equipment, transformers, and other long-lead-time infrastructure equipment at single locations. The figure below illustrates a comparison of the facility and power structures between mining facilities and AI data centers.

For AI development companies, bypassing the process of obtaining power grid approvals from scratch and instead retrofitting and utilizing already-energized mining sites can save years of time. However, not all miners are able to make this transition; only a select few that meet stringent criteria—such as securing cooling water, connecting to dark fiber (dedicated optical fiber) networks, upgrading cooling systems to direct liquid cooling, and achieving power redundancy (N+1 configuration) to support near 100% uptime—will be able to capitalize on this market opportunity.

Transformation of Revenue Structure and Future Outlook

A Scenario for Revenue Diversification and Dramatic Improvement in Corporate Valuation Multiples

The transition from bitcoin mining to the AI/HPC data center business has the impact of significantly enhancing a company’s revenue stability and valuation multiples in the stock market. While bitcoin mining revenues are heavily dependent on fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices and hashrates, AI data center colocation and cloud contracts are long-term, fixed, US dollar-denominated agreements that deliver exceptionally high predictability and high profit margins. Furthermore, regarding valuation multiples in the stock market, while pure-play bitcoin miners have historically remained at EV/EBITDA multiples of 6x to 12x, major data center operators trade at significantly higher valuation multiples of 20x to 25x. According to Visible Alpha consensus forecasts, the proportion of IREN’s total revenue generated by the HPC/AI business is projected to skyrocket from 3% in 2024 to 71% in 2026, which is expected to drive a decoupling from cryptocurrency market conditions and a rerating of corporate value.

Future Outlook and Key Points to Watch Across the Industry

As competition to secure power intensifies going forward, large-scale contracts between major IT companies seeking computing resources and miners holding high-standard land and electricity capable of supporting AI infrastructure are expected to increase further. Backed by multi-gigawatt power pipelines, advanced miners such as IREN are transforming from mere mining companies into next-generation infrastructure providers on par with hyperscalers. At the same time, careful attention must continue to be paid to the means of procuring the massive capital expenditures (CAPEX) associated with GPU server deployment and the execution risks of large-scale renovation work for liquid cooling infrastructure. While Bitcoin mining and AI computing compete for power, they are also generating new synergies in grid load balancing and the maximization of power assets, drawing significant attention to future market developments as the frontline where energy and AI technology intersect.

Reference page

• 【IREN stock jumps on multiyear cloud deal with Anthropic – Investing.com】https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/iren-stock-jumps-on-multiyear-cloud-deal-with-anthropic-93CH-4943757

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