IREN Jumps 6% but Then Gives Up Gains as Microsoft Accepts Horizon 1; TeraWulf Ticks Up, Cipher Digital Drops 5%
Quick Read
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IREN surged 6% and TeraWulf gained 4% after Microsoft formally accepted Horizon 1, triggering the first billing under IREN's $9.7 billion contract.
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NVIDIA certified IREN's Childress campus with Exemplar Cloud status after GB300 testing, yet both MSFT and NVDA stocks barely moved on the news.
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Bernstein targets IREN at $100 while 11 of 15 analysts rate it Strong Buy, but a beta of 4.3 signals sharp swings ahead.
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Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Cipher Mining didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Former Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) miners pivoting into AI infrastructure are moving Friday morning after a landmark acceptance milestone. IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) stock rallied 6% to $45.26 after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) formally accepted Horizon 1, the first of four data centers being built for the hyperscaler at IREN's Childress, Texas campus. However, within the first hour of trading, IREN stock was back to unchanged at $42.54.
Meanwhile, TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF) shares advanced 1% to $16.61. Cipher Digital (NASDAQ:CIFR) stock diverged, falling 5% to $16.35.
Microsoft stock is essentially unchanged at $481.27, and NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares are flat at $216.96. The Global X Data Center and Digital Infrastructure ETF (NASDAQ:DTCR) trades at $28.47, unchanged for the day.
Microsoft Signs Off on Horizon 1
IREN announced that Horizon 1, the first of four data centers it's building for Microsoft, has been delivered and formally accepted. Microsoft had a five-day window to test the deployment against agreed standards, and once it signed off, IREN was cleared to begin sending monthly invoices.
This marks the first billable revenue under a five-year, $9.7 billion contract, moving the deal from paper commitment to invoiced dollars. Separately, NVIDIA tested the site running its GB300 systems and granted Exemplar Cloud status, a certification reserved for providers that meet NVIDIA's performance and reliability bar.
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Financing Weight Lifts on IREN
The bear case on IREN has centered on financing the AI buildout, which costs many times current revenue. Today's acceptance starts to answer that concern. IREN has lined up a $3.65 billion debt package backed by the Microsoft contract, rated investment grade, covering almost all of the GPU spending tied to the deal.
Before that financing, IREN carried net debt of roughly $1.75 billion. On top of the Microsoft deal, IREN also holds a separate five-year, $3.4 billion cloud agreement with NVIDIA. More than a quarter of IREN's shares are still sold short, and much of that position assumes the AI pivot fails or the debt load overwhelms the company.