{"slug": "iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion", "title": "IREN inks $2.8 billion in AI cloud deals, lifts revenue target past $4 billion", "summary": "IREN announced $2.8 billion in new AI cloud contracts with eight customers including Perplexity, Figure AI, and Together AI, lifting its year-end 2026 AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target from $3.7 billion to over $4 billion, with about 85% already under contract. The company, which pivoted from Bitcoin mining to GPU cloud services, has now announced close to $16 billion in total customer contract value across deals with Microsoft, Nvidia, and others.", "body_md": "*IREN just signed $2.8 billion in new AI cloud contracts and lifted its year-end revenue target past $4 billion, and it's doing this off a business that started out mining Bitcoin.*\n\nIREN said on July 20 that it has locked in $2.8 billion of new multi-year cloud contracts. Eight customers, one huge number. The list includes Perplexity, Figure AI, Together AI, Fluidstack, Fireworks AI, Fal AI, Hume AI and one customer it hasn't named. The deals push IREN's year-end 2026 target for AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue from $3.7 billion to more than $4 billion. About 85% of that new target is already under contract, according to IREN's disclosure.\n\nThat's the headline number. The more telling detail sits underneath it. Customers have prepaid roughly 45% of the GPU capital expenditure tied to their own capacity, and the contracts run a weighted average of about four years. Prepayment at that scale means IREN's customers are funding a real share of the buildout before a single chip finishes ramping. That's exactly the kind of financing capital-hungry neoclouds need if they want to avoid drowning in their own capex.\n\n## From Bitcoin Rigs to AI Contracts\n\nFive years ago none of this made sense. IREN started life as Iris Energy, a renewable-powered Bitcoin miner. Mining profits came under pressure after the April 2024 halving, and the stock later traded at $5.13 a share. That's a brutal reset. The company didn't fold. It repointed its data centers, and its power contracts, toward GPUs instead of mining rigs.\n\nThis week's contracts don't stand alone. In November 2025, Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion, five-year deal with IREN for GPU cloud capacity built around Nvidia's GB300 chips at IREN's Childress, Texas data center. Nvidia followed in May 2026 with a $3.4 billion cloud services agreement tied to 60 megawatts of capacity at Childress, alongside a strategic partnership for as much as 5 gigawatts of Nvidia DSX-aligned infrastructure. Nvidia also received a five-year option to buy up to 30 million IREN shares at $70 each. That's real money on the table: roughly $2.1 billion if Nvidia exercises it. Separately, Dell agreed to supply about $1.6 billion of Blackwell systems for the Nvidia cloud contract. The hardware still has to arrive, get installed and work before any of that revenue counts. Across Microsoft, Nvidia and this week's AI developer contracts, IREN has now announced close to $16 billion of customer contract value. Sixteen billion, and rising.\n\n## What Happens Next\n\nNone of it guarantees the revenue shows up on schedule. IREN's target depends on 480 megawatts of AI Cloud capacity going live by the end of 2026. That's not a small ask. Revenue only starts ramping once each data center is built and the GPUs are commissioned. Customers then have to formally accept them before any of it counts. Timing is everything here. IREN has said plainly that its numbers rest on its own assumptions about GPU models, utilization and pricing.\n\nStill, the customer list is the real story here. Perplexity, Figure AI, Together AI, Fluidstack, Fireworks AI, Fal AI and Hume AI aren't hyperscalers sitting on endless balance sheets. They're AI labs and inference platforms that need GPU capacity now and don't want to build their own data centers to get it. You can see why IREN has an opening. The biggest buyers have soaked up Nvidia supply for years, but smaller AI companies still need clusters they can actually reserve, pay for and use.\n\nFrankly, that's what makes IREN worth watching more than any single number in this release. A company that spent its first several years running Bitcoin rigs off cheap renewable power has turned that same infrastructure into a GPU leasing business. Same buildings, same appetite for cheap electricity - a different business entirely. It now has named, paying AI customers and a revenue target north of $4 billion. Whether the rest of the sector treats that as a template or a one-off says a lot about how much room is left in the AI infrastructure buildout.\n\n**Also read:** [Brussels Fines Alibaba's AliExpress a Record 550 Million Euros](https://startupfortune.com/brussels-fines-alibabas-aliexpress-a-record-550-million-euros/) • [Blackstone Bets $676 Million on Futronic, the Robot Actuator Maker From Korea](https://startupfortune.com/blackstone-bets-676-million-on-futronic-the-robot-actuator-maker-from-korea/) • [Jeff Bezos Backs Cambridge AI Startup CuspAI at a $2.6 Billion Valuation](https://startupfortune.com/jeff-bezos-backs-cambridge-ai-startup-cuspai-at-a-26-billion-valuation/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion", "canonical_source": "https://startupfortune.com/iren-inks-28-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion/", "published_at": "2026-07-20 12:12:45+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-20 14:05:34.232927+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-startups", "ai-products"], "entities": ["IREN", "Perplexity", "Figure AI", "Together AI", "Fluidstack", "Fireworks AI", "Fal AI", "Hume AI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/iren-inks-2-8-billion-in-ai-cloud-deals-lifts-revenue-target-past-4-billion.jsonld"}}