Shares of IREN, the bitcoin mining firm turned AI infrastructure player, are higher by more than 500% year-to-date, but that might just be a start, according to one Wall Street bull.
Following the company’s third-quarter earnings report last week and its $9.7 billion, five-year deal with Microsoft to deliver 200 megawatts of AI compute at its Childress, Texas site, Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brett Knoblach left his already bullish 2025 targets mostly in place, but said IREN could hit $384 by 2028 from the current $67.
With that deal, wrote Knoblach in a Friday note, IREN joins the ranks of large-scale “neocloud” providers, adding credibility to the company’s ambitions to scale to $18.6 billion in annual revenue across its Texas and Canadian sites. The firm’s updated 2026 annual recurring revenue guidance jumped from $500 million to $3.4 billion following the announcement.
On the recent earnings call, noted Knoblach, IREN highlighted its preference for cloud over colocation, noting stronger returns, upfront capital support from Microsoft, and long-term asset value. Even if the GPUs lose their usefulness after five years — a scenario he views as unlikely — the data centers themselves could still generate hundreds of millions per year under colocation contracts.
Knoblach sees Microsoft’s involvement as a key vote of confidence in IREN’s infrastructure. He also believes the architecture being built is “future-proofed” for upcoming GPU generations, with rack densities that could support NVIDIA’s Rubin chips or their successors.
While Knoblach trimmed his near-term price target to $136 from $142 due to weaker bitcoin mining revenues, he reiterated an “overweight” rating and called IREN a top pick.
Shares are 7.6% higher to $67.12 Monday alongside a general rally in stocks and crypto.
