Iris Energy

IREN

Market cap $13.7B

The stock market has been a rollercoaster this year, marked by geopolitical tensions, trade wars, and shifting Federal Reserve policies that have left investors on edge.

IREN is pivoting from Bitcoin mining to an AI cloud and data center business, driving significant investor interest. The company differentiates itself by controlling the entire infrastructure stack, from power substations to GPUs, and focuses on colocation and GPU-as-a-Service offerings. A $9.7 billion, five-year GPU cloud services contract with Microsoft validates IREN's strategic shift and secures a stable, long-term revenue stream.

The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is tied to physical infrastructure. Every breakthrough in AI models, training speeds, and inference workloads requires massive amounts of power, cooling, and compute capacity.

IREN's rapid AI pivot and heavy capex contrast with MARA's low-cost, vertically integrated strategy as both chase post-bitcoin volatility upside.

The recent artificial intelligence (AI) sell-off has created attractive entry points in names ranging from chipmakers to data center operators. Infrastructure plays like CoreWeave and Nebius have pulled back sharply despite locking in tens of billions in hyperscaler contracts.

Investors are on edge as the S&P 500 dropped below its 50-day moving average for the first time since the tariff tantrum back in April. But if you've been actively trading these markets, you've likely noticed trouble brewing for a few weeks as speculative assets like AI stocks and Bitcoin have plummeted while gold and safer sectors soar.

Iren has been seeing extraordinary revenue growth. A slowdown in AI spending would dent that trajectory.

IREN secured 3 GW of power capacity, giving it a structural advantage amid nationwide interconnect delays and hyperscaler grid constraints. The Microsoft deal delivers $1.94 billion ARR with ~85% project margins, funded by a $1.9 billion prepayment and GPU financing. Childress expands to 200 MW liquid-cooled capacity in 2026–2027, with rack densities up to 200 kW for next-gen GPUs.

Shares of AI data center and high-performance computing stocks are climbing after Wednesday's closing bell following a blockbuster third-quarter earnings report from NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA).

The AI infrastructure sector is going through a rough patch, with shares of high-flyers like CoreWeave ( NASDAQ:CRWV ), Nebius Group ( NASDAQ:NBIS ) and other “neocloud” providers tumbling amid valuation fears, potential delays in hyperscaler spending, and broader market rotation away from growth names.