Could IREN Become the Next Nvidia-Backed AI Winner?

A former Bitcoin miner now holds billions in contracted AI cloud revenue and a direct NVIDIA investment commitment, but the path to capturing that upside runs through one of the most ambitious infrastructure buildouts in the sector's history.

Published September 9, 2026, 2:30pm ET · 3 min read

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A glowing blue brain icon labeled 'CENTRAL AI CORE' is at the center of a translucent panel, connected by luminous blue and purple lines to four other glowing square icons. The icons, from top left clockwise, are: 'HBM' (stacked memory chips), 'eSSD' (a processor chip), 'NAND' (a circuit board chip), and 'DRAM' (a memory stick). The background shows blurred server racks with blue and purple lights, creating a high-tech, futuristic data center environment.
Advanced memory and storage solutions like HBM, DRAM, eSSD, and NAND are depicted as crucial components fueling a central AI core, illustrating the vital infrastructure provided by technology companies such as Marvell Technology. © SK hynix

IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) has become one of the most consequential AI infrastructure names of 2026, thanks to a landmark 5-year, $3.4B AI Cloud contract with NVIDIA and a separate NVIDIA investment commitment of up to $2.1B tied to scaling toward 600,000 GPUs.

Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for IREN is $84.77, implying 80.63% upside from $46.93. Our recommendation is buy, with medium confidence given execution risk.

24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary

Metric Value
Current Price $46.93
24/7 Wall St. Price Target $84.77
Upside 80.63%
Recommendation BUY
Confidence Level 50%

From Bitcoin Miner to NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud in One Year

IREN is up 27.46% in the past week and 79.19% over the last year, propelled by the transition from Bitcoin mining to contracted AI cloud capacity.

Fiscal Q4 2026 revenue of $137.2M missed consensus by 2.52%, and the GAAP net loss of $684M included $450.4M in non-cash impairments on decommissioned mining hardware. Look past the noise and the AI Cloud segment more than doubled sequentially to $70.5M. Days later, Blue Owl-managed funds led a $2.4 billion AI factory financing for the company.

Why Bulls See a Path to $93 or Higher

The bull thesis is straightforward. IREN has $4B in contracted annualized recurring revenue targeted operational by December 31, 2026, from less than 10% of a 5GW+ pipeline. Three-year contract pricing now exceeds $20M per MW, with active discussions near $25 million per megawatt.

CEO Daniel Roberts told investors “Signing deals is not the bottleneck in this market. Bringing GPUs online is.” The $9.7B Microsoft contract alone is expected to contribute $1.9B in annual ARR. Our bull-case scenario points to $93.05, and Compass Point previously carried a $105 price target.

What Could Go Wrong at 4x Market Beta

The bear case centers on execution and dilution risk on a multi-gigawatt buildout that requires approximately $25 to $30 billion in fiscal 2027 capex. Customer concentration in Microsoft and NVIDIA is real, and permitting, grid interconnection, and GPU supply constraints could delay revenue recognition.

Bulls would counter that $6.5 billion of GPU financing was secured in the last three months at rates as low as 6%, with prepayments funding 45% to 55% of GPU capex. Most of the recent losses reflect one-time impairments from winding down mining. Our bear-case target is $67.15, still above the current price.

How IREN Compares to CoreWeave, Nebius, and Applied Digital

CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) is the closest pure-play AI cloud comparable, with Q2 2026 revenue of $2.575 billion (up 112.32% YoY) and a $104 billion revenue backlog. At a market cap of roughly $45.8 billion, CoreWeave trades at richer multiples than IREN despite similar customer overlap. That contrast makes our $84.77 target look reasonable rather than aggressive.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) is the closest analog to IREN’s crypto-to-AI pivot, with fiscal Q3 2026 revenue of $126.6 million (up 139.29% YoY) and a market cap near $8.05 billion. IREN is larger, better financed, and further along the NVIDIA validation curve.

Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS | NBIS Price Prediction) trades at $243.88, up 7.73% in the latest session, reflecting how the market is repricing NVIDIA-aligned neocloud names. That momentum reinforces the 24/7 Wall St. price target thesis for IREN.

IREN Price Prediction 2026-2030

My verdict: the 24/7 Wall St. price target of $84.77 and buy recommendation stand, at medium confidence. The tipping factor is contracted ARR moving from $1B today to a targeted $4B by year end.

The thesis strengthens if IREN delivers Horizons Two through Four on schedule this December quarter. It weakens if grid interconnection slippage or an equity raise materially delays the ARR ramp.

Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target
2026 $57.28
2027 $87.06
2028 $127.66
2029 $177.81
2030 $209.37

These projections assume IREN continues executing on the AI cloud buildout and NVIDIA relationship. Significant upside or downside could result from GPU supply, hyperscaler capex trends, or macro rate shifts. The power, cooling, and networking suppliers riding the same buildout are worth watching too, we profiled seven of them in a free AI infrastructure report.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Vandita Jadeja

Vandita Jadeja is a financial publisher with over a decade of experience writing about financial topics, including investment, savings, retirement, insurance and banking. Vandita is a Chartered Accountant who loves to debunk financial concepts for readers.

Her work has appeared on sites that include The Motley Fool, InvestorPlace, and Benzinga. She covers investing and focuses on stock picks and price prediction for 24/7 Wall St.

When not looking for the next stock investment opportunity, she can be found traveling, reading, chasing sunsets and enjoying her iced latte.

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