IREN Pours Billions into AI Bet as Bitcoin Mining Business Winds Down
IREN Ltd., the company formerly focused on bitcoin mining, is making a massive bet on AI cloud infrastructure. The company plans to spend between $25 billion and $30 billion in fiscal 2027 as it rapidly shifts its focus towards AI.
This shift is already showing signs of success, with IREN having secured about $4 billion of AI-related annual recurring revenue under contract. The company is simultaneously decommissioning its bitcoin mining equipment to allocate resources toward larger cloud deployments.
Funding this expansion will be the key challenge for IREN. The company's financing plan includes roughly $14 billion in cash, existing GPU financing, and customer prepayments, as well as another $8 billion of financing tied to GPUs and data centers.
This massive transition from bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure poses significant execution and financing risks for the company. However, the demand for AI cloud infrastructure is real, as evidenced by IREN's contracted recurring revenue.