Microsoft has signed a $9.7bn deal with Iren to access the neocloud's GPUs.

Spanning five years, the agreement will give Microsoft access to Iren's Nvidia GB300s. The total value of the contract is $9.7bn, with Microsoft providing 20 percent in prepayment.

In addition, Iren has agreed to buy $5.8bn in GPUs and ancillary equipment from Dell.

The GPUs will be deployed at Iren's data center campus in Childress, Texas, in phases through 2026 as liquid-cooled data centers are delivered. The campus has a total capacity of 750MW, of which the liquid-cooled data centers will make up 200MW.

Daniel Roberts, co-founder & co-CEO of Iren, said: “We’re proud to announce this milestone partnership with Microsoft, highlighting the strength and scalability of our vertically integrated AI locud platform. This agreement not only validates Iren’s position as a trusted provider of AI cloud services, but also opens access to a new customer segment among global hyperscalers.

"It marks another major step forward for Iren as we continue to expand large-scale GPU deployments across our 3GW secured power portfolio in North America, reinforcing our position as a leading AI cloud service provider.”

Iren is a cryptominer turned AI cloud provider with data centers located across Canada and the US. Currently, it has some 23,000 GPUs in its fleet, and in October said that contracts had been secured for around 11,000 of them.

It has not been stated how many GPUs Microsoft will lease from Iren under the contract, but the company is aiming to have more than 100,000 GPUs across its British Columbia data centers and Horizon 1 & 2 in Childress, Texas. Two other Horizon data centers are planned for the Childress campus, which Microsoft is also leasing capacity from.

Jonathan Tinter, president, business development and ventures at Microsoft, said: “Together with Iren, Microsoft is delivering cutting-edge AI infrastructure for our customers. Iren’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity, makes them a strategic partner."

Microsoft has signed a slew of capacity contracts with Neoclouds in recent months. In October, it was estimated that Microsoft had signed some $33bn in compute deals, including with Nebius, Nscale, CoreWeave, and Lambda.

In addition, the cloud giant has significantly upped its data center leasing activities. In the most recent earnings call, CFO Amy Hood noted that due to ongoing limitations on power and space, they were increasingly turning to long-term leases. In Q1 of FY2026 alone, some $11.1bn was spent on data center leases.

Iren was formerly known as Iris Energy. The company is in the midst of a pivot away from cryptomining towards its AI cloud business. While it is still mining Bitcoin, the firm is winding down its mining operations and diverting cash flow to its AI business.