IREN Is Up 186% YTD on AI Pivot—And It’s Just Getting Started
Although IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) is one of the best-performing stocks over the past 12 months, this mid-cap gem may be flying under the radar of many investors. And even those who know of IREN may not fully grasp the bullish opportunity.
Prior to 2025, IREN Limited (then known as Iris Energy Limited) built its business on profitable Bitcoin mining, taking advantage of low‑cost hydroelectric power in Prince George, British Columbia. The facility’s location provided access to inexpensive, renewable electricity, giving the company a key strategic advantage.
That's the same business model that data centers require, which is why IREN made a strategic pivot away from Bitcoin mining and into data center development. The kind of energy that makes Bitcoin mining economically viable, and makes data center development scalable.
Same Infrastructure, New Mission: AI Data Centers
The company is repurposing its Prince George facility into a high-performance computing (HPC) hub focused on AI and other enterprise workloads. It's also building new facilities designed specifically for AI infrastructure. Not surprisingly, IREN stock is up over 186% in 2025.
If investors weren’t clear about the bullish opportunity in AI infrastructure before this earnings season, they should be now.
Despite momentum in AI stocks slipping in early 2025 over concerns about monetization, opportunistic investors realize that the AI trade wasn’t over; it just shifted to the physical infrastructure required to support all that growth. While software names cooled off, infrastructure providers like IREN emerged as the “second wave” of the AI trade by powering the data centers that make AI possible.
IREN currently operates 1,900 NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVIDIA) graphics processing units (GPUs) and plans to increase that number to 10,900 GPUs by the end of the calendar year. Of that number, 1,200 (or more than 10%) will be NVIDIA’s B300 (i.e., its cutting-edge Blackwell architecture).
Once those GPUs are deployed, IREN forecasts $200 million to $250 million in annual AI cloud revenue. That revenue comes with power costs around $0.033 per kilowatt-hour, which is among the lowest globally.
Adding to the company’s bullish appeal, the company has arranged non-dilutive financing with 36-month leases on all its GPUs, allowing rapid expansion without diluting shareholder value.
Bitcoin’s Still in the Picture—For Now
Another strategic consideration behind the company’s strategy is that it hasn’t abandoned Bitcoin mining entirely; it has just paused further expansion. In fact, the IREN generates steady cash flow from its current mining operations and puts its “cash cost” line at around $36,000 per BTC. This means that if BTC trades above approximately $36,000, IREN will continue to generate steady cash flow. At the same time, its push into AI cloud services will power its future opportunities.
This gives IREN a baseline revenue stream while its AI business ramps up, reducing risk while keeping the growth story intact.
IREN Stock Soars: Bullish Trend Faces Short-Term Test
IREN stock is up over 27% since the company’s recent earnings report was released. That bullish trend, however, could come under some short-term pressure. Whenever a stock makes a parabolic move like the one IREN has made post earnings, it’s usually a time when some investors will take profit. It may also increase short interest.
As of mid-day, trading on September 2, IREN stock continues its bullish momentum with trading volume almost double its average. The stock is also trending well above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) around $20.55.
However, the rally has pushed the stock’s relative strength indicator (RSI) to around 80, which signals the stock is overbought and could be due for a pullback. If that were the case, investors should look for an area around the $24 to $25 range as the first level of support. A break below that could bring the 20-day SMA into play at around $20.55.
A healthy consolidation doesn’t mean that the bullish rally is over. The MACD line continues to be firmly above its signal, showing strong conviction. However, for the rally to continue, investors will want to see sustained closes above $28 to $30. That would confirm strong institutional support, despite what seems like overbought conditions.
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