<div id="readability-page-1">Money Markets IREN Stock: Helping Solve The AI Power Shortage  ByTrefis Team ,  Contributor.  Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Building a platform to do the job of 1 million analysts for  Great Speculations Follow Author Dec 11, 2025, 05:00am EST  CHONGQING, CHINA - AUGUST 26: In this photo illustration, a person holds a smartphone displaying the logo of Iris Energy Limited (NASDAQ: IREN), an Australia-based sustainable Bitcoin mining company powered by renewable energy, with the company's branding visible in the background on August 26, 2025 in Chongqing, China. (Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images) Getty Images The global competition for Artificial Intelligence has encountered a significant structural barrier: electricity. There is simply not enough electricity to support the rapid expansion of computing infrastructure. Morgan Stanley anticipates a U.S. power deficit of 44 gigawatts (GW) through 2028. Securing power capacity has emerged as the foremost bottleneck for the industry. New data centers, including those using state-of-the-art chips, are experiencing delays of several years to obtain crucial grid connections. This is where IREN stock (NASDAQ: IREN), one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners that has shifted towards AI cloud computing, has defined its structural edge. Having benefited from years of forward-looking power planning, IREN has transitioned to become the essential infrastructure associate for the world’s leading technology firms. The company has emerged as one of the hottest stocks of 2025, increasing more than four times year-to-date to around $47. Additionally, refer to What The Trump “China Pivot” Means For Nvidia .  How IREN Differentiates Itself  IREN’s competitive edge does not lie in software or fundamental technology. It is the industrial assets that confront the industry's most significant limitations directly. This vertical integration is widely acknowledged by analysts and investors as IREN’s core strength.  Total Vertical Control: Unlike competitors who must lease power or space in data centers, IREN fully owns its land, energy sources, and data centers throughout North America.  The Power Pipeline: This comprehensive ownership permits IREN to manage approximately 2.9 to 3 GW of secured, low-cost power capacity – a resource so limited it enables rapid scaling while competitors face multi-year delays.  Industry-Leading Low Costs: This integration results in some of the lowest power costs compared to its peers, at about U.S. $0.033 per kWh. This disparity offers a significant structural advantage, yielding high gross margins on compute sales.  Renewable Energy Advantage: All operations are entirely powered by renewable energy, drawn from British Columbia hydropower in Canada and wind-heavy markets in Texas. This is a non-negotiable requirement for global hyperscale partners.  Selling Compute-as-a-Service  The company’s approach is to steer clear of the complexities associated with general cloud services and concentrate solely on offering high-density, specialized hardware hosting or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). While main clients encompass neocloud companies such as Fluidstack and Together AI, the crown jewel of this endeavor is the $9.7 billion partnership with Microsoft, which was announced in October 2025. This agreement provides the tech titan with dedicated access to IREN’s advanced Nvidia GB300 GPUs until 2031. The deal is anticipated to generate about $1.9 billion in expected annual revenue. The company plans to implement this through phased deployments at its Childress Texas facility.  This IaaS framework enables partners like Microsoft to avoid locking up capital in constructing new data centers and securing costly power infrastructure. It also ensures supply by locking in access to scarce GPUs and the liquid-cooled facilities required to operate them. It additionally maximizes IREN’s ready-to-use power infrastructure to deploy thousands of GPUs within months, rather than years.  Does The Valuation Make Sense?  The stock is trading at a noticeable premium, approximately 47 times the estimated FY’26 earnings, indicative of its rapid growth trajectory. Revenues have surged 235%, increasing from $206 million to $689 million over the last 12 months, while quarterly revenues soared 355.4%, climbing to $240 million in the most recent quarter from merely $53 million a year prior. Adjusted EBITDA margins stood at a robust 54% last year. Growth is also forecasted to remain strong in the future. Management now predicts reaching a substantial $3.4 billion in AI Cloud Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) by the end of 2026, affirming the market’s expectations for growth.  MORE FOR YOU Regarding capacity, the company is pursuing an ambitious GPU expansion plan, increasing from about 23,000 operational GPUs today to approximately 140,000 GPUs by the end of 2026. To support this rapid $5.8 billion expansion, it successfully completed a $2.3 billion convertible note and equity offering in early December 2025.  What Are The Risks?  That being said, the primary risk lies in execution. Although the contracts and capital are secured, the company needs to flawlessly manage the large-scale construction, cooling, and network integration of over 100,000 GPUs, a process inherently susceptible to multi-month delays and technical obstacles.  The stock has also been quite volatile given the rising interest from retail investors (the “Reddit crowd”); while it increased over 6 times between January and November due to momentum-driven buying and social-media hype around AI infrastructure, it has subsequently fallen approximately 39% since then. The stock’s heavy activity on online messaging platforms and forums makes it particularly susceptible to sharp, sentiment-driven fluctuations, where its price can rapidly deviate from fundamentals in both directions.  The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio , featuring a selection of 30 stocks, has a history of reliably outperforming its benchmark, which encompasses the S&amp;P 500, S&amp;P mid-cap, and Russell 2000 indices. Why is this the case? As a collective, HQ Portfolio stocks have delivered superior returns with lower risk compared to the benchmark index; they offer a smoother investment experience, as demonstrated in HQ Portfolio performance metrics .  Editorial Standards Reprints &amp; Permissions LOADING VIDEO PLAYER... FORBES’ FEATURED Video</div>

IREN

<p>IREN, a sustainable Bitcoin mining company, has transitioned to AI cloud computing, becoming a key infrastructure partner for tech firms amid a global AI power shortage. With full control over its power resources, IREN offers low-cost, renewable energy solutions, securing a $9.7 billion partnership with Microsoft. The stock has surged, reflecting its rapid growth and strategic positioning. However, execution risks remain despite secured contracts and capital for expansion.</p>