AI Compute Race: Microsoft Secures $9.7 Billion GPU Deal with IREN for Cloud Expansion

Microsoft announced a five-year deal with Australian infrastructure operator IREN, valued at up to $9.7 billion, to secure additional AI cloud computing capacity as demand for its services grows, according to Reuters. Under the agreement, Microsoft will access IREN’s high-performance computing infrastructure built on NVIDIA GB300 GPUs, with deployment in stages throughout 2026 at IREN’s Childress, Texas facility designed to support up to 750 MW of compute capacity.

IREN announced an additional investment of approximately $5.8 billion with Dell to supply the GPUs and related hardware components. In October, Microsoft launched its first production Azure Cloud cluster featuring NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 systems, and separately agreed with Nscale to procure around 200,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs for four data centres in Europe and North America.

According to Bloomberg, IREN CEO Daniel Roberts said the contract will use only about 10% of IREN’s total compute throughput and is expected to generate approximately $1.94 billion in annualised revenue.