Why this name is on the tape
IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) used to be Iris Energy: a Bitcoin miner that bought cheap power in Texas and British Columbia and filled warehouses with ASICs. That business is still there. The print that now dominates the name is different. IREN is trying to become a vertically integrated AI Cloud operator — own the land, own the megawatts, own the liquid-cooled halls, rent the GPUs.
The company lists six North American campuses on about 4,900 acres, with roughly 5 GW of power it says is secured. The named sites are Childress and Sweetwater in Texas, Kiowa in Oklahoma, and Prince George, Mackenzie, and Canal Flats in British Columbia. It is also targeting about 800 MW in South Australia and has bought Spanish developer Nostrum Power. On its own site map it currently shows about 810 MW operational, 2,100 MW under construction, and 1,600 MW in development. Those are company figures for a buildout, not a claim that 5 GW of GPUs are already earning rent.
The Microsoft contract, and what Horizon 1 actually is
In November 2025 IREN announced a five-year, $9.7 billion Microsoft cloud contract. The physical shape of that deal is four 50 MW (IT load) liquid-cooled Horizon buildings at Childress, scheduled for 2026. On 13 August 2026 IREN said Horizon 1 had been accepted by Microsoft. That is the first of the four. Acceptance starts the service term on that building. It is not the same as all four Horizons being live, and it is not the same as $9.7 billion already in the bank.
If the four Childress halls all commission as contracted, IREN has pointed to about $1.94 billion of annualized revenue run-rate from the Microsoft deal, with a reported 20% customer prepayment. Horizon 1 is also the first NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud on GB300 NVL72 hardware that IREN has put in front of a hyperscaler. The remaining three 50 MW deliveries are still a 2026 schedule, not a completed campus.
NVIDIA, and the multi-customer book behind Microsoft
Microsoft is the headline. It is not the whole book. In May 2026 IREN announced a separate five-year, $3.4 billion AI Cloud contract with NVIDIA for air-cooled Blackwell in about 60 MW of existing Childress capacity, with ramp from early 2027. Around that, the two companies described a broader partnership aimed at up to 5 GW of AI Cloud, plus a five-year NVIDIA right to buy up to 30 million IREN shares at $70 — about $2.1 billion if fully exercised, and still subject to closing conditions.
In July 2026 IREN said it had signed $2.8 billion of additional multi-customer AI Cloud contracts, with customers prepaying about 45% of GPU capex. After those deals it raised its 2026 annualized run-rate target to more than $4 billion. That is a target. Contracted megawatts and prepaid capex are not the same as recognized revenue in a given quarter.
What is live versus what is a 2026–2027 target
IREN’s own 2026 target is 480 MW of gross AI Cloud capacity, then 1.2 GW in 2027. Sweetwater 1 (about 1.4 GW of project power) was energized in May 2026; Sweetwater 2 (about 600 MW) is later in the sequence. Childress remains the near-term GPU campus because that is where Horizon 1 sits and where the Microsoft and NVIDIA contracted halls are supposed to land.
Bitcoin mining has not vanished. IREN is still hashing while it winds ASICs down in favor of GPUs. Power that is “secured” is not the same as halls that are liquid-cooled, accepted, and billing. For a name that prints on both miner comps and AI-infrastructure comps, that distinction is the whole article.
What this does not tell you
A signed hyperscaler contract is evidence of demand for IREN’s campuses. It is not proof that 480 MW will be on the floor by year-end, that Sweetwater will fill on schedule, or that prepayments will cover the capex without more dilution. Horizon 1 acceptance is one building. Three more Horizons, the NVIDIA ramp, and the multi-customer halls are still ahead.
On MarketNeon, IREN is a ticker like any other: price, volume, crowd mentions, and headlines can run hot while most of the contracted capacity is still under construction. This article is context for those prints. It does not rank the name, and it does not tell anyone to buy or sell.