Microsoft inks $9.7bil deal with Australia's IREN for AI cloud capacity

Group 1 - Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion, five-year contract with Australia's IREN to secure additional AI cloud capacity [2] - The deal will provide Microsoft access to compute infrastructure utilizing Nvidia's GB300 GPUs, with deployment planned through 2026 at IREN's facility in Texas [2] - IREN is also purchasing GPUs and equipment from Dell for approximately $5.8 billion [2] Group 2 - Microsoft launched its first production cluster with Nvidia's GB300 NVL72 systems for Azure, optimized for various AI applications [3] - A previous deal was signed with Nscale for around 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs for data centers in Europe and the U.S. [3] Group 3 - IREN transitioned from a bitcoin-mining operation to focusing on AI workloads, significantly benefiting from this shift [4] - The CEO of IREN expects the Microsoft deal to utilize only 10% of the company's total capacity, generating about $1.94 billion in annualized revenue [4]