Microsoft signs $9.7B AI cloud deal with Australia’s IREN
Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion, five-year contract with Australia’s IREN on Monday to secure additional AI cloud capacity amid rising customer demand for AI services. The agreement provides access to compute infrastructure equipped with Nvidia’s GB300 GPUs, deployed in phases through 2026 at IREN’s Childress, Texas facility designed for 750 megawatts of capacity.
Under the deal, Microsoft gains dedicated resources to support its Azure cloud platform’s expansion in artificial intelligence capabilities. IREN, headquartered in Sydney, operates the Texas site as part of its growing data center operations focused on high-performance computing. The phased rollout ensures gradual integration of the infrastructure, aligning with Microsoft’s timeline for scaling AI workloads.
Separately, IREN has committed approximately $5.8 billion to purchase GPUs and related equipment from Dell Technologies. This investment equips the Childress facility with the necessary hardware to meet the contract’s requirements and potentially accommodate future expansions. The procurement underscores IREN’s strategy to build robust computing environments tailored for intensive AI applications.
Microsoft’s recent advancements include the launch last month of its first production cluster featuring Nvidia’s GB300 NVL72 systems integrated into Azure. These systems are engineered specifically for reasoning models, agentic AI systems, and multimodal generative AI, enabling more efficient processing of complex AI tasks. The cluster represents a key step in Microsoft’s efforts to deliver cutting-edge AI infrastructure to enterprise users.
In parallel, Microsoft entered an agreement last month with Nscale for roughly 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs. This arrangement spans three data centers in Europe and one in the United States, broadening Microsoft’s global compute footprint for AI services. The Nscale deal complements the IREN contract by diversifying Microsoft’s supplier base for GPU-intensive operations.
IREN originated as a bitcoin-mining company but pivoted its extensive GPU assets toward AI workloads as the industry emphasized artificial intelligence over cryptocurrency mining. This transition has positioned IREN to capitalize on surging demand for AI computing power. According to Bloomberg, IREN CEO Daniel Roberts stated that the Microsoft deal will utilize only 10% of the company’s total capacity and produce about $1.94 billion in annualized revenue.