Shares of IREN, the bitcoin mining company turned AI infrastructure player, are up more than 500% so far this year, but that could be just the beginning, according to one Wall Street bull.
Following the company’s third-quarter earnings report last week and its $9.7 billion, five-year deal with Microsoft to deliver 200 megawatts of AI computing at its Childress, Texas, site, Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brett Knoblach left his already optimistic 2025 targets mostly in place, but said IREN could reach $384 by 2028 from $67 today.
With that deal, Knoblach wrote in a Friday note, IREN joins the ranks of large-scale “neocloud” providers, adding credibility to the company’s ambitions to scale to $18.6 billion in annual revenue at its Texas and Canadian sites. The company’s updated 2026 annual recurring revenue guidance jumped from $500 million to $3.4 billion following the announcement.
On the recent earnings conference call, Knoblach noted, IREN highlighted its preference for cloud over colocation, highlighting stronger returns, initial capital support from Microsoft and long-term asset value. Even if GPUs lose their usefulness after five years (a scenario he considers unlikely), the data centers themselves could still generate hundreds of millions per year under colocation contracts.
Knoblach sees Microsoft’s involvement as a key vote of confidence in IREN’s infrastructure. He also believes the architecture being built is “future-proofed” for next generations of GPUs, with rack densities that could support NVIDIA’s Rubin chips or their successors.
While Knoblach cut his near-term price target to $136 from $142 due to weaker bitcoin mining revenue, he reiterated an “overweight” rating and called IREN a top pick.
Shares rose 7.6% to $67.12 on Monday along with a general rally in stocks and cryptocurrencies.
