Microsoft said today it had signed a $9.7 billion purchase agreement for AI cloud capacity from bitcoin mining company turned neocloud IREN.
The move marked one of the biggest commercial validations yet for the upcoming neocloud sector, referring to a group of data center companies that evolved from bitcoin mining to artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Under the five-year contract, Microsoft will gain access to Nvidia GB300-based AI systems hosted in Texas.
IREN, previously known for its large-scale Bitcoin mining operations, will buy $5.8 billion worth of GPUs from Dell Technologies and expects nearly $1.9 billion in annualized revenue from the deal.
The announcement sent IREN shares soaring more than 30% in premarket trading, extending a 500% rally this year fueled by the rise of AI hardware.
Founded during the Bitcoin mining wave, IREN joins peers like CoreWeave and Crusoe in redeploying energy-intensive infrastructure toward AI workloads.
The deal is indicative of how miners’ once-volatile hardware fleets are increasingly seen as strategic computing assets, bridging the gap between blockchain and AI.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has relied on leasing agreements with such vendors to meet growing demand for Azure AI services amid an ongoing global shortage of GPU capacity.
