NEW YORK, May 27, 2026, 13:05 (EDT)
IREN Limited shares gained in midday Nasdaq trading Wednesday after the data center operator said it signed a $1.6 billion deal to buy Dell hardware. The agreement is designed to help IREN roll out Nvidia Blackwell systems faster for AI customers.
The stock gained 9.4% to $65.42 and earlier hit $65.78. Volume was over 44 million shares. Market cap was about $21.8 billion.
IREN is pushing to shift its focus from bitcoin mining at its energy-heavy data center sites to a broader AI cloud business. A GPU, or graphics processing unit, is needed to train and run most AI models. Supply and installation of GPUs has become a main bottleneck for the industry.
IREN’s IE US Hardware 4 Inc signed a deal with Dell Marketing L.P. on May 19, according to a filing. Dell is set to deliver GPUs and other products and services worth about $1.6 billion. IREN will pay in instalments after each shipment, with the equipment going to its Childress, Texas site.
IREN said the Blackwell systems are set for commissioning in early 2027 and are designed to back a previously announced five-year, $3.4 billion managed-services AI cloud deal. IREN expects annualized run-rate revenue, or ARR, to increase to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion after the systems are up and running.
Daniel Roberts, IREN’s co-founder and co-CEO, said “time-to-compute is everything,” referring to how fast hardware can be put to work. He said Dell will supply IREN with hardware at the “scale and speed” the market needs. “Every deployment we complete makes the next one faster,” he added. SEC
Dell’s deal adds to IREN’s May 7 contract with Nvidia. Under that agreement, IREN will supply managed GPU cloud services to Nvidia for internal AI and research work. The contract also brings in orchestration and cluster-management software, working with Mirantis.
Nvidia and IREN this month said they plan to work together on up to 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure. Nvidia got a five-year option to buy as many as 30 million IREN shares at $70 each. The deal could mean $2.1 billion for IREN, depending on certain conditions.
IREN moved past a group of listed names linked to data-center and crypto-mining infrastructure with the trade. Cipher Digital climbed roughly 4.0%, Core Scientific was up 3.5%, and TeraWulf rose 2.3%. Dell edged up 0.8%, while Nvidia fell 1.3%.
The upside isn’t straightforward. IREN said its $4.4 billion ARR target isn’t fully contracted yet and depends on GPU assumptions, utilization, pricing, and timely hardware deliveries. Financing stays in the spotlight, with the company just two weeks out from wrapping a $3.0 billion convertible note deal — debt that could become shares and dilute holders if converted.
Dell’s order is the latest sign that IREN is moving away from crypto infrastructure and into AI cloud. The question ahead is whether IREN can get chips shipped, paid for, up and making money fast enough to keep up with its valuation.
