Bear of the Day: IREN Limited (IREN)

IREN Limited (IREN), formerly known as Iris Energy, delivered a solid report on Thursday for their Q1 FY26 financial results, with total revenue increasing 355% year-over-year to a record $240.3 million.

And net income increased to a record $384.6 million vs. a Q1 FY25 net loss of $51.7 million.

This Bitcoin miner turned datacenter builder and operator is now known for its ability to assemble over 3 gigawatts of power for its new AI customers. Here's how the company briefly describes their business...

"IREN is a leading AI Cloud Service Provider, delivering large-scale GPU clusters for AI training and inference. IREN’s vertically integrated platform is underpinned by its expansive portfolio of grid-connected land and data centers in renewable-rich regions across the U.S. and Canada."

The reason that IREN became a Zacks #5 Rank (Strong Sell) on October 29 was that analysts had been busy lowering their EPS estimates in the past few weeks.

But those forecasts may improve soon as business is now seen booming.

Microsoft Partnership is the Real Focus

On Monday, IREN announced they signed a 5-year $9.7 billion AI cloud deal with Microsoft (MSFT) to deploy NVIDIA (NVDA) GB300 GPU systems at its 750MW Childress site.

Some investors were concerned that this required an upfront purchase by IREN for $5.8 billion in hardware from Dell (DELL) to support the build. But the contract is also expected to contribute $1.9 billion in ARR (annual recurring revenue).
 
And many IREN investors will appreciate this recent vote of confidence surrounding the new partnership from Jonathan Tinter, President of Business Development and Ventures at Microsoft...

"IREN's expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud, from data centers to GPU stack, combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner."

This alliance will further boost IREN's development of new business that the company projects could deliver $3.4 billion in AI Cloud ARR by the end of 2026, including multi-year contracts with Together AI, Fluidstack, and Fireworks AI to drive growth. This will entail an expansion to 140,000 GPUs of capacity.

Bottom line for IREN: Analysts will be busy today re-working their models, assumptions, and growth forecasts for IREN. Since EPS estimates have already come down significantly, the company profit outlook may be near a trough that offers a buying opportunity. The Zacks Rank will let you know.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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