IREN Shares Surge Over 20% Following $9.7 Billion Microsoft Contract

Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst

IREN+11.43%

MSFT+0.7%

Source: Fool

Updated: 4h ago

0mins

Source: Fool

Stock Surge: IREN's stock price increased by 21.6% this week according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, driven by analyst upgrades and popularity among retail traders, reflecting market confidence in its transition.
Analyst Upgrades: Bernstein named IREN a top AI stock for 2026, while H.C. Wainwright upgraded it to buy due to its successful pivot from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud services, making these upgrades catalysts for the stock's rise.
Microsoft Contract: IREN signed a long-term contract worth $9.7 billion with Microsoft; although current AI cloud revenue is only $7.3 million per quarter, this contract lays the groundwork for future growth and expansion in the AI sector.
Market Valuation: With a market cap of $16 billion, IREN's valuation appears high given its AI cloud revenue of less than $10 million, prompting caution among investors as the path to profitability remains uncertain and may take years to achieve.

IREN

$57.82+Infinity%1D

Analyst Views on IREN

Wall Street analysts forecast IREN stock price to rise over the next 12 months. According to Wall Street analysts, the average 1-year price target for IREN is 83.45 USD with a low forecast of 28.00 USD and a high forecast of 136.00 USD. However, analyst price targets are subjective and often lag stock prices, so investors should focus on the objective reasons behind analyst rating changes, which better reflect the company's fundamentals.

13 Analyst Rating

9 Buy

2 Hold

2 Sell

Moderate Buy

Current: 51.890

Low

28.00

Averages

83.45

High

136.00

Current: 51.890

Low

28.00

Averages

83.45

High

136.00

Goldman Sachs

Neutral

initiated

$39

Al Analysis

2025-12-18

Reason

Goldman Sachs

Price Target

$39

Al Analysis

2025-12-18

initiated

Neutral

Reason

Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of Iren with a Neutral rating and $39 price target. The firm says Iren is an artificial intelligence cloud that is in "hyper growth," scaling from $501M revenue in fiscal 2025 to $3.8B in 2028. However, the stock's valuation is "relatively full," the analyst tells investors in a research note. Goldman believes Iren should deliver outsized growth over the next several years as the Microsoft deal scales, but it views the company's growth beyond that as more uncertain.

JPMorgan

Underweight

maintain

$28 -> $39

2025-11-24

Reason

JPMorgan

Price Target

$28 -> $39

2025-11-24

maintain

Underweight

Reason

JPMorgan raised the firm's price target on Iren to $39 from $28 and keeps an Underweight rating on the shares. The "flurry of deal activity" in high performance compute gives JPMorgan higher conviction in the bitcoin miners. It cites richer integrated cloud valuation assumptions for the target boost.

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Citizens JMP

Greg Miller

initiated

$80

2025-11-19

Reason

Citizens JMP

Greg Miller

Price Target

$80

2025-11-19

initiated

Reason

Citizens JMP analyst Greg Miller initiated coverage of Iren with an Outperform rating and $80 price target. The firm launched coverage of five companies previously in bitcoin mining, saying they provide "critically-scarce" power supply for high performance compute and artificial intelligence. The deployment of graphics processing unit clusters represents an opportunity to "unlock significant value," the analyst tells investors in a research note. Citizens sees strong pricing trends with a continued supply/demand imbalance for the group.

Cantor Fitzgerald

Overweight

downgrade

$142 -> $136

2025-11-07

Reason

Cantor Fitzgerald

Price Target

$142 -> $136

2025-11-07

downgrade

Overweight

Reason

Cantor Fitzgerald lowered the firm's price target on Iren (IREN) to $136 from $142 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. The centerpiece of Iren's earnings was its newly announced five-year, $9.7B deal with Microsoft (MSFT) for 200 MW of IT load at its Childress, Texas site, positioning the company as one of the world's largest emerging neocloud providers, the analyst tells investors in a research note. With significant remaining capacity and heightened credibility from the Microsoft partnership, additional large-scale deals appear likely in the near-term, Cantor says.

About IREN

IREN Limited is an Australia-based company, which owns and operates data centers powered by 100% renewable energy. Its facilities are optimized for Bitcoin mining, artificial intelligence (AI) cloud services, and other power-dense compute. Its data center mining facilities are in Canal Flats, Mackenzie, Prince George and Childress. Bitcoin Mining provides security to the Bitcoin network. Al Cloud Services provides cloud compute to Al customers, approximately 1,896 NVIDIA H100 and H200 GPUs. Its Canal Flats facility is in the Canadian Rockies, 100 kilometers (km) from Cranbrook regional airport and 500km east of Vancouver. Its facility is in Prince George, the city in northern British Columbia, located 500 km north of Vancouver. Its facility is located in Childress County, Texas, over 250 miles northwest of Dallas and in close proximity to multiple wind and solar generating facilities in the region. Its Childress operations comprise 200 Mega Watt of operating data centers.

About the author

Emily J. Thompson

Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.