SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2026, 03:34 PDT
• Just days after rolling out its Nvidia-powered AI infrastructure strategy, IREN pushed through an upsized $2.6 billion convertible-note offering.
• Nvidia has secured a five-year option to purchase as many as 30 million IREN shares at $70 apiece, part of a larger push involving up to 5 gigawatts of AI data-center infrastructure.
• Now, the market is facing a test: can AI demand, available power, and GPU rollouts move fast enough to offset dilution and higher funding costs?
IREN has increased its convertible-note deal to $2.6 billion, securing new capital to back its AI infrastructure ambitions alongside Nvidia, and revealing to investors just what it might take to pivot from bitcoin mining to running a sizable AI cloud business. According to the company, the notes—convertible into shares under certain conditions—come with a 1.00% coupon and a 2033 maturity.
The Nvidia deal has shifted from endorsement to obligation. IREN now faces the task of quickly lining up land, power, data centers, and GPUs—getting those contracts off paper and into real capacity.
IREN shares were quoted at $56.56 ahead of the U.S. open, around 2.6% above their prior close. Nvidia was at $220.78, up roughly 0.6%. That puts Nvidia’s market capitalization near $5.4 trillion—a figure that doesn’t allow much tolerance for setbacks in the AI infrastructure story.
Nvidia and IREN announced plans on May 7 to push forward with deploying as much as 5 gigawatts of Nvidia DSX-compatible AI infrastructure throughout IREN’s global data center network. Down the line, the focus shifts to IREN’s Sweetwater campus in Texas, which has a 2-gigawatt capacity. Alongside the deal, IREN granted Nvidia a five-year option to snap up as many as 30 million shares at $70 apiece—potentially a $2.1 billion stake if all conditions, including regulatory sign-off, are met.
The partnership comes in addition to IREN’s separate five-year cloud deal with Nvidia, valued at $3.4 billion, where IREN will supply managed GPU cloud infrastructure for Nvidia’s internal AI and research needs. According to IREN, this contract will tap into roughly 60 megawatts of current data center space at its Childress, Texas facility, outfitted with air-cooled Blackwell systems.
“AI factories are becoming foundational infrastructure for the global economy,” Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang said, noting that major rollouts need everything—from compute and networking to power, software, and operations—working together. IREN’s co-CEO Daniel Roberts pointed out the agreement fuses Nvidia’s AI tech with IREN’s footprint in power, land, and data centers. NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia’s chip dominance is increasingly linked to the hardware and infrastructure that support it. CoreWeave chief Michael Intrator, speaking to CNBC and quoted by TheStreet, noted Nvidia is “covering their bases” with infrastructure deals, aiming to guarantee customers sufficient compute power. The catch, according to Intrator: if supply gets too tight, customers may start looking at AMD instead. TheStreet
AMD isn’t a footnote here. Data-center revenue jumped 57% from a year earlier, hitting $5.8 billion in the first quarter as EPYC chips and Instinct GPU deliveries picked up speed. CEO Lisa Su pointed to data center as the main engine now powering both AMD’s top and bottom lines.
CoreWeave stands as another key benchmark for investors sizing up AI cloud infrastructure. The company logged first-quarter revenue at $2.08 billion, and reported a revenue backlog hitting $99.4 billion. Intrator noted CoreWeave has already crossed 1 gigawatt in active power, targeting over 8 gigawatts by 2030.
IREN’s latest figures lay out the case: revenue slumped to $144.8 million for the March quarter, down from $184.7 million the quarter before. The company recorded a net loss of $247.8 million. According to IREN, the numbers stem from its pivot away from bitcoin mining into AI Cloud, and it booked non-cash impairments largely related to shutting down mining equipment.
Here’s the rub: demand exists, but scaling up comes with a big price tag and complicated execution. Freedom Capital Markets’ Paul Meeks called IREN’s sharp drop Monday, following the debt announcement, an “overreaction to the downside.” Still, he pointed to the stock’s swings, noting the company faces years of heavy spending and won’t be profitable anytime soon. Morningstar’s Luke Yang said IREN could require “tens of billions more funding” to boost its data-center footprint in Texas, Oklahoma, and British Columbia. MarketWatch
IREN reports $3.1 billion in annual recurring revenue under contract, with a goal of reaching $3.7 billion by the close of 2026. For IREN, that annual recurring revenue number—essentially the anticipated yearly sales generated from active contracts—has turned into the key metric tracking whether its shift toward Nvidia and Microsoft-connected AI is robust enough to handle the company’s debt load.
