Bitcoin Miner IREN Shares Fall as AI Conversion Costs Mount

In brief AI cloud revenue reached $70.5 million in the fiscal fourth quarter, surpassing Bitcoin mining revenue for the first time. IREN reported a $684 million quarterly loss, including $450.4 million in asset impairments. Of IREN’s $4 billion in contracted annualized run-rate revenue, $1 billion was operating as of Aug. 26. IREN shares fell more than 8% after the Bitcoin miner turned AI data center operator reported a $684 million loss in its fiscal 2026 results.The stock dropped 8.2% in after-hours trading Thursday to $37.19, after closing at $40.53.Myriad: Bitcoin next price move? Click to make your prediction.AI cloud services generated $70.5 million in the quarter ended June 30, up from $33.6 million the previous quarter. The segment surpassed Bitcoin mining revenue of $66.7 million for the first time and accounted for 51.4% of IREN’s quarterly revenue.Mining revenue fell 40% from the prior quarter as IREN converted mining sites for AI use. Total revenue declined 5% to $137.2 million. Bernstein analysts expect IREN to wind down Bitcoin mining by 2030 as the company replaces mining hardware with graphics processing units for AI workloads.“We started IREN with a simple observation: the digital world can scale almost instantly, but the physical world cannot,” Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IREN Daniel Roberts said in a statement. “This year, that founding thesis became tangible. Exponential AI consumption growth has fueled demand for compute capacity well beyond the available supply of infrastructure. IREN was built for this moment.In a separate report, the company said adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, fell 68% to $19.2 million from $59.5 million. IREN attributed the decline to higher employee costs and investment ahead of its AI cloud expansion.The quarterly loss included $450.4 million in impairments, mostly from retired mining hardware, plus $127.2 million in write-downs and losses on equipment held for sale or disposed of. For the year, revenue rose 41% to $707 million, but $638.8 million in impairments pushed IREN to a $702.6 million loss, compared with an $86.9 million profit in fiscal 2025.The company reported $4 billion in contracted annualized run-rate revenue, or ARR, scheduled to operate by year-end.IREN secured $6.4 billion in GPU financing, including $3.6 billion at a 6% weighted-average interest rate for its five-year, $9.7 billion AI cloud agreement with Microsoft. That financing and Microsoft’s prepayments cover 96% of the related costs, while another $2.8 billion will fund deployments for other customers.IREN also signed a $3.4 billion AI cloud contract with Nvidia in May. The five-year agreement covers managed GPU services and forms part of a partnership to deploy as much as 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure.Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.