Jefferies initiated coverage on IREN Limited with a Buy rating and a $79 price target, projecting roughly 30-36% upside from recent trading levels near $58. The thesis is straightforward: IREN’s AI cloud services business will generate better returns than simply leasing out data center space, and the market hasn’t fully priced that in yet.
The investment bank estimates that only about 10% of IREN’s approximately 6 GW global power portfolio is currently being utilized. That’s a staggering amount of untapped capacity for a company that has already locked in $9.7 billion worth of contracts with Microsoft over five years.
From Bitcoin mining to AI powerhouse
IREN, formerly known as Iris Energy, has undergone one of the more dramatic strategic pivots in the crypto-adjacent infrastructure space. The company started as a Bitcoin miner running renewable-powered data centers. Now it’s repositioning itself as an AI and high-performance computing services provider.
The numbers tell the story of a company in mid-transformation. Of IREN’s secured power capacity exceeding 4.5 GW, roughly 810 MW is operational and 2,100 MW is under construction.
