IREN Ltd. shares jumped 5% during premarket trading on Monday after a report identified Anthropic as the mystery artificial intelligence cloud customer the company had alluded to during its earnings call in August.
The Information published an analysis of the economics of Anthropic’s data centre leases, detailing how the AI company is pressing its cloud partners to accelerate the construction of new facilities to meet growing computing demand.
The analysis, featured in Ann Davis Vaughan’s newsletter, examined the financial implications of bringing data centre capacity online ahead of schedule.
According to AI Weekly, the report said: “Bringing the site’s 245 MW of usable capacity online one month early would add $1.3bn+ in revenue.”
The potential revenue gain helps explain why Anthropic is pushing infrastructure partners to speed up construction and deployment.
The report also linked Anthropic to an undisclosed agreement with IREN.
“People familiar with the relationship say Anthropic also has an unannounced multiyear cloud deal with IREN,” it said, according to AI Weekly.
The agreement would deepen Anthropic’s ties with a growing group of current and former Bitcoin mining companies that are repurposing their infrastructure to support artificial intelligence workloads.
The sprint to secure computing capacity “increasingly depends on current and former bitcoin miners such as Hut 8, TeraWulf, IREN and Nscale,” Vaughan wrote, pointing to operators that hold valuable grid connections at former smelter and hydrogen sites.
The reported IREN agreement would add to Anthropic’s previously disclosed arrangements with Amazon Web Services, Google and more than a dozen other providers.
IREN expands AI infrastructure business
IREN said in August that it had signed a new multiyear contract with a frontier AI lab and secured $2.8 billion in new financing to help fund its AI chip purchases.
The company did not identify the customer at the time.
The AI cloud infrastructure provider also announced that it had delivered the first phase of its large-scale Microsoft deployment and secured Nvidia Exemplar Cloud status, marking two milestones in its efforts to establish itself as a major provider of AI computing infrastructure.
IREN had disclosed $4 billion in contracted annual recurring revenue for its 2026 capacity, which was largely sold out.
It was also in late-stage discussions with a range of new customers for a significant portion of its planned 2027 capacity.
“Our 2026 capacity is largely sold out. This includes Horizon 1, the first of four leading-edge liquid cooled GPU deployments that we successfully delivered to Microsoft this month,” Daniel Roberts, IREN’s co-founder and co-chief executive officer, said during the company’s August earnings call.
“We have broadened our customer base to include hyperscalers, enterprises, AI developers and frontier labs. As our platform has scaled and our market position has strengthened, we have attracted leading customers and secured stronger pricing, more attractive contract terms and improved paybacks,” he added.
The reported Anthropic deal could further strengthen IREN’s customer pipeline as demand for advanced computing capacity continues to drive investment in data centres and specialised cloud infrastructure.
Bitcoin mining transition weighs on earnings
Despite Monday’s premarket gains, IREN shares have faced significant pressure this year.
The stock has fallen 18% in 2026 and is down 45% over the past 12 months, mirroring weakness among other neocloud companies such as CoreWeave and Nebius.
Investor concerns about a potential AI bubble, alongside the substantial capital expenditure required to expand computing infrastructure, have weighed on the sector.
IREN’s latest results highlighted the scale of its transition from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud services.
Revenue from AI Cloud Services increased nearly eightfold to $128.8 million in fiscal 2026, compared with $16.4 million in fiscal 2025.
However, net income in fiscal 2026 and the fourth quarter was affected by non-cash impairments of $638.8 million and $450.4 million.
The charges primarily related to the decommissioning of Bitcoin mining hardware as sites were converted to support AI cloud growth.
The shift requires significant upfront spending on GPUs, power infrastructure and data centre capacity. Investors remain cautious about whether former miners can generate sufficient returns from owning and operating AI computing infrastructure.
JPMorgan and Bernstein see upside potential
Analysts have nevertheless pointed to improving contract economics and strategic partnerships as potential drivers of IREN’s longer-term growth.
In September, JPMorgan upgraded IREN to overweight from underweight, doubly upgrading the stock following a major agreement with Nvidia.
The bank raised its price target to $65 from $46, which represents a nearly 85% upside from current trading levels.
“We see IREN establishing itself as a top-tier neocloud provider, backed by its strategic partnership with NVIDIA,” analyst Richard Choe said in a note to clients, accessed by CNBC.
“The company has gained momentum in signing customers and industry pricing has moved up substantially.”
IREN’s five-year AI cloud transaction with Nvidia, signed in May and valued at more than $3 billion, has also been viewed as a potentially important turning point for the company.
JPMorgan noted that pricing for IREN’s neocloud operations now ranges from $15 to $20 per watt, or higher depending on GPU generation and deployment duration.
This compares with historical agreements priced at approximately $10 to $15 per watt.
The bank also expects IREN’s planned 0.5-gigawatt expansion in 2027 to command pricing above historical averages, potentially helping offset concerns about the cost of building out infrastructure.
Bernstein SocGen Group has also maintained a positive outlook.
In August, the brokerage reiterated its Outperform rating and $100 price target, implying more than 100% upside from the stock’s trading level at the time.
Bernstein acknowledged that investors remain sceptical about whether former Bitcoin miners can successfully become AI cloud providers, particularly those investing heavily in owning and operating infrastructure instead of adopting a lower-cost colocation leasing model.
However, the brokerage argued that IREN’s strategy could prove more profitable while AI computing capacity remains scarce.
According to Bernstein, IREN’s AI cloud model could generate between $10 million and $20 million per megawatt, compared with roughly $2 million to $2.5 million per megawatt through traditional colocation leasing.
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