New York, May 22, 2026, 19:05 (EDT)
- IREN dropped 2.1% to finish at $56.83 on Friday, but shares still gained about 7.4% for the week.
- The stock remains tied to Nvidia AI cloud deals. It’s also dealing with big costs from its buildout plan.
- U.S. stock markets close Monday for Memorial Day. The next session is Tuesday, which marks the first day of trading after the holiday.
IREN Limited shares lost ground Friday, dropping after a two-day run. Nvidia-backed AI cloud demand stayed in focus, but investors also watched for rising costs tied to new data centers.
The stock ended down 2.1% at $56.83 on Nasdaq, giving back some ground after jumping 10.4% Wednesday and 10.2% Thursday. Despite Friday’s selloff, the stock still wrapped up the week above its May 15 finish at $52.94.
IREN moved on its own story, separate from Thursday’s gains in the broader market. Wall Street closed higher before the long weekend—the S&P 500 gained 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2%.
IREN is showing high-beta action, now pitching itself as an AI infrastructure story. Once focused on bitcoin mining, the company is now trying to use its power-rich sites to rent out GPU clusters, which are needed for AI model training and inference.
Nvidia remains central in the story. IREN said on May 7 it signed a five-year deal with Nvidia for $3.4 billion in AI cloud work. The agreement covers managed GPU cloud services for internal AI and research at IREN, using around 60 megawatts at its Childress, Texas, data center.
Nvidia and IREN agreed on a separate strategic partnership to build up to 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure in the future. Nvidia also got a five-year option to buy as many as 30 million IREN shares at $70 each, a move that could total $2.1 billion if Nvidia exercises the option and requirements are met. “AI factories” are becoming key parts of the global economy, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the statement.
IREN co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts said this month that the world is “structurally short compute,” citing delivered data center and GPU capacity as the main bottleneck. The company has $3.1 billion in annual recurring revenue under contract now, with a target of $3.7 billion by the end of 2026. IREN’s figure for annual recurring revenue is its own projection of expected yearly repeat sales, not revenue reported under accounting standards.
IREN shares remain volatile, with costs playing a big part. The company closed a $3.0 billion convertible note offering on May 14. The notes are debt that could turn into equity. IREN also arranged capped call transactions, giving some hedge from dilution, but just up to a set share price.
IREN posted weaker numbers for the March quarter. Revenue dropped to $144.8 million from $184.7 million in the prior quarter, with a net loss of $247.8 million. The company cited falling bitcoin prices and the shutdown of mining hardware ahead of GPU installations and new billing as reasons for the revenue slide. It said better AI cloud revenue helped soften the drop.
Peers traded mixed. Applied Digital slid about 4.5%, while Cipher Digital rose 2.1%. CoreWeave, which has a larger AI cloud operation, lost nearly 1.6%.
IREN stock has divided analysts this month, according to MarketWatch. Paul Meeks at Freedom Capital Markets said the selloff looks like an “overreaction to the downside,” though he pointed to the stock’s swings as linked to heavy spending. Luke Yang from Morningstar said IREN might need “tens of billions more funding” for data centers in Texas, Oklahoma and British Columbia. MarketWatch
The risk is clear. IREN has to finance, construct, and lease new capacity as scheduled. That means getting GPUs, securing power, lining up permits, and signing up customers. Delays at Childress or Sweetwater, lower GPU rental rates, tighter funding, or Nvidia slowing down could put attention back on IREN’s balance sheet instead of its AI contracts. The company’s risk disclosures flag capital needs, gear supply, GPU demand, customer reliability, power availability, and bitcoin price swings as potential issues for performance.
U.S. stock markets will be closed Monday, May 25 for Memorial Day, according to Nasdaq. Trading picks up again Tuesday. IREN shares are set to open for the week higher, though they ended below Friday’s session peak.
