Why Investors Should Buy IREN Limited Over Nebius
Two AI infrastructure companies just reported earnings that look nothing alike, and the worse-looking quarter might belong to the better buy.
IREN Limited (NASDAQ:IREN) and Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS | NBIS Price Prediction) just reported earnings that read like two chapters of the same AI buildout. IREN is closing a Bitcoin-to-AI pivot. Nebius is stacking billion-dollar contracts on a full-stack cloud. One quarter looked painful. The other looked pristine.
Impairments Bury IREN. Landmark Deals Lift Nebius.
IREN’s June-quarter revenue landed at $137.2 million, missing the $140.75 million consensus by 2.52%, with a $684 million GAAP net loss driven by a $450.4 million non-cash impairment on decommissioned mining hardware. AI Cloud revenue hit $70.5 million and more than doubled sequentially. CEO Daniel Roberts said “the digital world can scale almost instantly, but the physical world cannot.” Horizon 1 shipped to Microsoft with NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud status on GB300 NVL72.
Nebius moved opposite. Q2 revenue jumped 454.04% year over year to $582.30 million, beating consensus by 1.33%. The AI Cloud unit produced $285.7 million of adjusted EBITDA at a 50% margin. Four landmark contracts closed, averaging more than a billion dollars each. Remaining performance obligations stand at $37.49 billion.
| Business Driver | IREN | Nebius |
|---|---|---|
| Latest Revenue | $137.2M (miss) | $582.3M (beat) |
| Contracted ARR Target | $4B by Dec 2026 | $7B to $9B by end 2026 |
| Anchor Customer | Microsoft (Horizon) | Meta, Microsoft, Cohere |
Vertically Integrated Underdog Meets Full-Stack Machine
IREN owns power, land, substations, cooling and buildings across Texas, British Columbia, Oklahoma, Australia and Spain, with more than five gigawatts of announced capacity. Roberts wants each layer to earn a margin. Recent three-year contracts price at more than $20 million per megawatt of IT load, with active discussions near $25 million. Customer prepayments funded roughly 96% of the Microsoft GPU capex, a striking capital-efficiency signal for a former miner (the power, cooling, and land layer IREN owns is exactly the non-chip AI supply chain we mapped in a free report on seven AI infrastructure names).
Nebius is software-forward. Aether, Token Factory and Tavily wrap the GPUs, and short-term training deals are negotiated at $40 million to $50 million per megawatt. That shows pricing power. The balance sheet reflects it: $8.5 billion in convertible debt with a fair value of $20.8 billion, $12.1 billion in uncommenced lease obligations, and three customers who account for 24%, 21%, and 14% of Q2 revenue. Concentration risk is real.
Horizons 2 Through 4 Drive the Thesis
IREN must convert contracts into live gigawatts. Horizons 2, 3 and 4 target the December quarter, with revenue predominantly in the March quarter. FY2027 capex guidance sits at $25 billion to $30 billion, and management targets roughly $8 billion more in GPU financing and prepayments. Nebius has less to prove operationally but a heavier funding lift: $20 billion to $25 billion of 2026 capex and a Vera Rubin rollout starting late 2026 or early 2027.
Why IREN Interests Me
I lean toward IREN for investors comfortable with turnaround risk. Nebius is the safer compounder, and unless you expect rapid execution on IREN’s power site conversions without excessive shareholder dilution, the risk profile favors Nebius. The market agrees: NBIS is up 149.9% year to date while IREN is down 6.14%. That gap is why IREN interests me. If Roberts delivers Horizons 2 through 4 on schedule and secures data-center financing without heavy equity issuance, the discount closes quickly. If he stumbles, the setup punishes you. Nebius fits a growth-at-scale investor. IREN fits a contrarian who reads Roberts’ “funding flywheel” language and believes it.
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Alex Sirois is a financial writer with experience spanning both retail and institutional investing. He has written for InvestorPlace and held roles at BNY Mellon and Bernstein, giving him a perspective that bridges Main Street portfolios and Wall Street analysis.
Alex holds an MBA from George Washington University and has built his career across multiple industries, including e-commerce, education, and translation — a breadth of experience that informs how he breaks down complex financial topics for everyday investors. His writing is conversational, actionable, and grounded in long-term, buy-and-hold investing principles.
At 247 Wall St., Alex focuses on delivering analysis that is both accessible and useful, with a clear emphasis on helping readers make more informed decisions with their money.
