IREN Secures $3.1B in Annual Contracts While Expanding Into Spain’s Green Energy Hub

The pivot from Bitcoin mining to artificial-intelligence infrastructure has taken a decisive European turn. IREN’s acquisition of Spanish data-center developer Nostrum Group adds 490 megawatts of secured power capacity across Extremadura, the Basque Country, and Galicia — bringing the global portfolio to five gigawatts. Spain’s cheap renewable energy and friendly regulatory regime for AI projects made the move a natural fit. The deal also brings a 50-strong engineering team into the fold, pending standard regulatory approvals.

Markets had little time to digest the Nostrum news before IREN priced a beefed-up $2.6 billion convertible note, split into tranches maturing in 2032 and 2033. The initial reflex was skepticism — convertible debt can dilute existing shareholders if converted. But after a brief selloff, attention shifted to the capital’s purpose: accelerating the buildout of high-performance computing and AI data centers. The company’s market capitalization now sits at roughly $20.21 billion, reflecting how far the narrative has moved from cyclical bitcoin mining toward recurring infrastructure revenue.

The strategic overhaul is expensive. IREN posted a net loss of nearly $248 million in its fiscal third quarter on revenue of about $145 million. The red ink stems partly from writing down legacy mining hardware and from lower bitcoin prices. Yet the new direction is already proving its worth: AI-cloud-service revenue jumped 94% sequentially. Long-term contracts with Microsoft and Nvidia anchor the business, representing a combined $3.4 billion in committed value.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying IREN?

Management is now dangling a much bigger revenue target. Annualized contracted recurring revenue stands at $3.1 billion, with a goal of $3.7 billion by the end of 2026. The metric is the true anchor for valuation. The more revenue locked in via customer agreements, the more comfortable the market becomes with heavy capital spending on energy, sites, and GPU capacity. By late 2026, IREN aims to operate 150,000 GPUs, powered by a secured electricity platform of 5.0 gigawatts. Energy, not chips, has become the bottleneck for AI data centers.

Sweetwater, Texas, serves as the proving ground. The first phase of the site is now live, with total capacity designed for 1.4 gigawatts — enough to house more than 700,000 GPUs at full buildout. That facility alone positions IREN as a serious North American player. Meanwhile, the integration of roughly 650 engineers from Mirantis strengthens cloud-orchestration and Kubernetes skills, while the company puts further bitcoin-mining expansion on hold to channel capital and attention toward AI.

Analysts remain bullish despite the stock’s high-octane ride. H.C. Wainwright raised its price target to $85, Cantor Fitzgerald set a $77 target (citing the strong Nvidia partnership), and BTIG repeated a buy rating. The shares closed Tuesday at €48.28, up roughly 565% over twelve months, though a 118% volatility figure underscores the sector’s jittery nature.

For 2027, IREN has penciled in a scale-up of its AI-cloud capacity to 1.21 gigawatts. A long-term contract with Microsoft worth $9.7 billion provides a powerful tailwind, supplemented by other strategic partnerships. Execution risk is real: the market will reward construction milestones and GPU rollouts but penalize delays harshly. With the Nostrum acquisition in Spain and the convertible note in hand, IREN is now playing a two-continent game — and the clock is ticking on delivery.

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