Bitcoin miner IREN closes Nostrum deal to scale Europe AI cloud
Bitcoin miner IREN said it has completed the acquisition of Ingenostrum (Nostrum Group) to accelerate Europe AI cloud growth. The deal adds about 490MW of secured, grid-connected power in Spain, along with a local development pipeline and a team of 50+ employees. Nostrum operations will run under the IREN brand, making Spain IREN’s first European market beyond its existing power footprint.
In the same update, Bitcoin miner IREN framed the move as a strategic shift from pure BTC mining toward AI compute infrastructure, citing renewable power and fiber connectivity as key advantages. Financially, mining remains under pressure: BTC mining revenue fell to $111.2M (from $167.4M) in the quarter ended March 31, while AI cloud services revenue rose to $33.6M (from $17.3M). IREN also posted a $247.8M net loss, mainly driven by non-cash impairments related to decommissioned mining hardware.
Strategic targets include 480MW of AI cloud capacity in 2026 and $3.7B in annual recurring revenue by year-end. IREN referenced a five-year, $3.4B AI cloud contract with NVIDIA and support for its $9.7B Microsoft cloud agreement in Texas. The company noted its GPU footprint—about 150,000 GPUs installed or on order—could support a $3.7B annual revenue run rate.
For crypto traders, this is incremental diversification away from BTC, but short-term market relevance is still likely to track Bitcoin mining cycle conditions and BTC price, given the recent revenue decline from mining.
Neutral
IREN closing the Nostrum deal is a positive diversification signal toward AI compute and longer-duration infrastructure revenue, but the near-term financial backdrop still shows BTC mining revenue falling and a large net loss driven by mining hardware impairments. That means any immediate market reaction for BTC is more likely to be dominated by BTC price and mining-cycle conditions than by IREN’s AI strategy. Over the long run, AI cloud contracts (NVIDIA/Microsoft) could reduce miners’ sensitivity to BTC volatility, but this news does not yet clearly indicate a fast reduction in BTC exposure.