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Bernstein set a $100 price target on IREN, implying 76% upside from the stock's Thursday close of $56.85, after the company announced a long-term strategic partnership with NVIDIA. The agreement includes a $3.4 billion cloud contract for NVIDIA's internal workloads and grants NVIDIA the right to invest $2.1 billion in equity at $70 per share.
In a Friday note led by Gautam Chhugani, Bernstein characterized the deal as a potentially significant technological and capital alignment. Securing NVIDIA as a strategic partner for IREN's 2GW Sweetwater flagship site delivers both architectural backing for advanced AI factories and supply confidence as hardware transitions to next-generation platforms.
Why it matters
The structure of the deal — equity option, multi-year cloud commitment, and a flagship 2GW anchor — is what moves the needle, not the headline contract value. IREN now has a credible path from bare-metal provider to vertically integrated AI cloud operator: the $625 million Mirantis acquisition adds managed GPU services and orchestration, and Bernstein pegs total AI cloud ARR at $3.7 billion by CY26E across British Columbia and Childress, Texas sites.
The risk Bernstein flagged is execution: IREN still needs to land an anchor client and broader enterprise customers for Sweetwater, and the 200MW Horizon delivery for Microsoft — first 50MW due in Q3 — is the near-term test of whether the company can actually operate a vertically integrated cloud at scale.
Market impact
Reiterating an Outperform rating, Bernstein framed the data-center opportunity as enormous and still early, with material upside still possible. For a stock that priced a bitcoin-mining business, the NVIDIA deal reframes IREN as a direct AI infrastructure play alongside the CoreWeaves and Nebius cohort — and at $56.85, the $70 equity strike and $100 Bernstein target sit on the same path.
Frequently asked questions
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What did Bernstein announce for IREN?
Bernstein set a $100 price target on IREN, implying 76% upside from the May 7 close of $56.85, and reiterated an Outperform rating after IREN announced a long-term strategic partnership with NVIDIA.
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What does the IREN–NVIDIA partnership include?
The deal includes a $3.4 billion cloud contract for NVIDIA's internal workloads and grants NVIDIA the right to invest $2.1 billion in IREN equity at $70 per share, with IREN's 2GW Sweetwater site as the flagship.
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Why does the NVIDIA equity option matter more than the cloud contract value?
The $2.1B equity option at $70/share locks NVIDIA into IREN's long-term trajectory and signals supply confidence for next-gen GPUs — turning a customer relationship into a structural capital alignment, Bernstein argued.
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What is IREN's near-term execution risk?
Bernstein flagged that IREN still needs an anchor client and broader enterprise customers for Sweetwater, and the 200MW Horizon delivery for Microsoft — first 50MW in Q3 — is the immediate test of operating a vertically integrated cloud at scale.
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What revenue target did Bernstein model for IREN's AI cloud business?
Bernstein pegged total AI cloud ARR at $3.7 billion by CY26E, drawing on capacity across British Columbia and Childress, Texas under existing Microsoft and NVIDIA contracts.
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