IREN Reportedly Signs Multi-Year Anthropic Cloud Contract, Terms Undisclosed

A multi-year deal neither side confirms

Data-center operator IREN, which began as a crypto mining business under its former name Iris Energy, has reportedly signed a multi-year cloud computing contract with AI developer Anthropic, although neither company has publicly confirmed the agreement. Reports citing people familiar with the matter surfaced on Monday, and they left out the money: no contract value, no capacity figure and no delivery timeline have been disclosed. The closest official trace sits in an August 27 investor announcement, in which IREN said a new customer described as a “leading frontier AI lab” had committed to a multi-year deal without being named; whether that customer is Anthropic has not been established. The company is converting sites built for mining into AI data-center capacity serving hyperscalers, enterprises and frontier labs, and its roster of named counterparties is already substantial. A strategic partnership with NVIDIA announced in May targets up to 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure under the NVIDIA DSX architecture and includes a $3.4 billion AI cloud agreement; IREN also granted NVIDIA a five-year right to buy up to 30 million shares at $70 each. Microsoft signed a five-year, $9.7 billion cloud services contract in November 2025, served from a Texas facility running liquid-cooled NVIDIA GB300 systems. The first 50-megawatt phase, Horizon 1, was delivered in August, and Horizons 2 through 4 are slated for handover in the fourth quarter of 2026. Co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts said in August that demand for computing power now far outstrips supply, with most of the 2026 capacity booked and advanced talks under way with new customers for 2027. AI cloud revenue reached $128.8 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026, up more than sevenfold from $16.4 million, while mining still contributed $578.2 million.

From $4 billion contracted to $1 billion billing

Even a confirmed signature would open a revenue story rather than close one. In its fiscal 2026 results, IREN reported $4 billion of contracted annualized run-rate revenue for capacity coming online in 2026, but only $1 billion of that was operating as of August 26. Run-rate is a company-defined metric, effectively GPU hourly pricing multiplied by 8,760 hours, and it is not booked sales; the SEC filing itself cautions that recognized revenue may be materially lower. The fiscal year closed with a net loss of $702.6 million, including $638.8 million of non-cash impairments tied mainly to decommissioned mining rigs. Sector-wide, analysts at CoinShares estimate miners hold more than $100 billion in AI and HPC backlog, yet that backlog supports only about $1.1 billion of actual annual revenue, with 550 megawatts billing today out of more than 4 gigawatts contracted. Retrofitting a mining site for AI runs $8 million to $15 million per megawatt, against under $1 million for mining capacity. IREN has secured $3.6 billion of financing at 6% for the Microsoft GPU build-out and $2.4 billion at 9% for its Mackenzie expansion, while customer prepayments typically cover 45% to 55% of GPU costs on new contracts. The pressure behind the pivot is visible in mining economics too: bitcoin closed the second quarter of 2026 at $58,400, below the $75,500 per-coin cash cost miners report. The clearest benchmark for a signed, priced Anthropic agreement is Akamai's contract, announced on September 24: seven years, worth $11.6 billion and expandable to $20 billion, with a warrant over up to 5% of Akamai shares granted to Anthropic. That deal covers CPU workloads, not the GPU capacity miners are building.

For now, the market is treating the report as unproven. COINOTAG data shows IREN last trading at $34.05, down 11.42% over the past day within a range of $33.80 to $38.56, with the daily RSI at 31.8 and the trend filter in downtrend mode. COINOTAG's composite scoring places the strongest support at $32.60, scored 84 out of 100, and the strongest resistance at $36.44, scored 82 out of 100; a sustained break above that ceiling would be the first technical sign investors are pricing in a confirmed deal. Anthropic's pre-IPO market is quieter, with perpetual open interest of $45.7 million and a funding rate of 0.0025% per interval.