Bernstein Cuts IREN Target to $100, Sees AI Cloud Upside

Bernstein lowered its IREN price target from $125 to $100 but kept an Outperform rating, saying IREN still leads the “AI vs. crypto” transition. The downgrade is driven by weaker Bitcoin mining economics and higher share count from dilution, not by a decline in AI demand. The core thesis is IREN’s shift from BTC mining to AI cloud GPU leasing. IREN moved toward near-zero modeled Bitcoin mining and instead uses its 4.5GW of power capacity (Texas, British Columbia, Oklahoma) to expand AI operations. The centerpiece is a five-year Microsoft deal: IREN will lease 77,000 of its 150,000 GPUs to Microsoft, targeting $1.94B in annualized revenue. Additional AI cloud contracts added about $400M as of February. Dell is set to supply Nvidia GB300 processors under a $5.8B purchase agreement, while GPU-backed financing of $3.6B at below 6% interest helps cover ~95% of the Microsoft contract. For traders, the key takeaway is that IREN’s valuation sensitivity is shifting away from BTC mining and toward AI cloud contract execution. Bernstein projects AI cloud revenue of about $2.6B by 2027 and ~$6B by 2030, supporting high scalability at scale. Near term, dilution remains a risk for IREN holders even as crypto market prices (BTC around $76.4k) look range-bound.