IREN signs $1.6 billion Dell deal for Nvidia AI hardware

Shares of IREN Limited rose sharply on Wednesday after the data center operator announced a $1.6 billion purchase agreement with Dell Technologies for Nvidia-powered Blackwell systems, a major step in expanding its artificial intelligence infrastructure capacity.

The agreement, signed on May 19, involves aircooled Blackwell systems and is designed to support IREN's previously announced five-year, $3.4 billion managed AI cloud services contract. The hardware will be deployed across the company's existing data centers in Childress, Texas, with commissioning targeted for early 2027. Once operational, the contract is projected to increase IREN's annualized run-rate revenue to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion.

Company co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts emphasized the critical importance of speed in the current market. Securing capacity and accelerating commissioning are our top priorities in a market where time-to-compute is everything, Roberts said. Our relationship with Dell ensures access to hardware at the scale and speed the market demands.

The deal underscores the intense demand for AI compute infrastructure as companies race to secure capacity for complex AI workloads. The $1.6...