New York, Jan 17, 2026, 05:40 (EST) — Market closed
IREN Limited shares jumped 11.5% on Friday, closing at $57.82 and holding near the day’s peak heading into the weekend. The stock traded in a range between $51.94 and $58.74, with roughly 54 million shares changing hands. In after-hours trading, it was last seen around $58.24. (MarketBeat)
The rally follows investors betting on upbeat analyst views about IREN’s shift to AI infrastructure. H.C. Wainwright raised its rating on the stock from “sell” to “buy,” boosting the price target to $80 from $56, according to TipRanks. (TipRanks)
A November SEC filing revealed the wager. IREN agreed to give Microsoft access to dedicated GPU infrastructure — the graphics processors for training and running AI models — in phases at its “Horizon” data centers in Childress, Texas. The full contract is valued at roughly $9.7 billion through 2031. The expansion covers four sites with around 200 megawatts of IT load, the power needed to run the servers. The filing also detailed a separate deal with Dell to provide the GPUs and related gear, worth about $5.8 billion.
In the press release unveiling the deals, IREN co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts described it as a “milestone partnership with Microsoft,” emphasizing the “strength and scalability” of the company’s AI cloud platform. Microsoft executive Jonathan Tinter added that the collaboration would provide customers with “cutting-edge AI infrastructure.”
H.C. Wainwright analyst Mike Colonnese said “the stage is set for a transformative year,” noting that hyperscalers — the biggest cloud players — are expected to keep pouring money into AI infrastructure. He added the Microsoft deal hasn’t been fully priced in yet and highlighted IREN’s power capacity pipeline as a key competitive advantage. (TipRanks)
Shares tied to crypto mostly strengthened as bitcoin dipped slightly by 0.2%, settling at $95,194. Riot Platforms surged roughly 16% on Friday, with Marathon Digital up around 6.6%. Microsoft edged up about 0.7%, while Nvidia fell close to 0.5%.
U.S. stock markets will be closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Trading will resume on Tuesday. (New York Stock Exchange)
But the AI expansion demands heavy capital and carries genuine execution risks. IREN’s investor documents highlight concerns such as customer concentration, equipment shortages, volatile power and electricity prices, and the chance customers might exit or fail to meet contract terms — any of which could swiftly undermine cash flow projections in a stock already viewed as a high-beta proxy tied to crypto and AI sentiment.
Right now, the market faces a straightforward test: will Friday’s surge stick once liquidity creeps back in, or will it unwind as profit-taking resurfaces?
IREN’s next quarterly earnings report is expected on Feb. 11, according to MarketBeat, although the company hasn’t officially confirmed that date. (MarketBeat)
