From Mining Crypto to Powering AI
AI’s insatiable demand for electricity is forcing large-scale tech firms to rethink how and where their data centers operate.
According to the Electric Power Research Institute, U.S. data centers could consume up to 9% of the nation’s total electricity by 2030, more than double today’s level.
That growing demand has opened new opportunities for companies like IREN, which already control vast tracts of land, energy contracts, and power-dense facilities originally built for bitcoin mining.
In an interview with Investor’s Business Daily, Kent Draper, IREN’s Chief Commercial Officer, explained how the company leveraged its existing infrastructure to serve the AI revolution:
“We’ve worked very hard over time to build up optionality in our platform — to be able to monetize it in various different ways,” said Draper.
“If you look at the key pinch points in the sector right now, it’s access to land, power, and data centers capable of handling power-dense computing. All of which we have in abundance within IREN.”
Record Stock Performance in 2025
Addressing those “pinch points” has helped propel IREN’s stock to record highs.
After hitting a low of $5.13 in April, IREN shares surged to a high of $74.15 by mid-October before experiencing a brief pullback.
The stock has since stabilized above the $60 mark, supported by strong investor sentiment and robust technical indicators.
Analysts expect IREN’s upcoming Q3 earnings report on November 6 to reflect the company’s momentum:
- Earnings per share: projected at $0.15 gain (versus a $0.27 loss last year)
- Revenue: expected to rise 344% to $241.7 million, according to FactSet estimates
The turnaround highlights how IREN’s strategic repositioning has created an entirely new revenue engine centered on AI cloud computing and GPU leasing services.
Expanding AI Cloud Services
IREN’s latest phase of growth focuses on expanding its AI cloud-services division, where the company owns and operates GPUs offered as-a-service to enterprise and startup clients.
“We’ve been expanding rapidly in our AI cloud-services sector,” Draper noted.
“This isn’t a pivot for us — it’s been the strategy from day one. The business was founded on the thesis of fast digital growth, increasing data dependency, and the rise of computing demand.”
In many cases, the company is now running AI workloads in the same data halls once used for bitcoin mining — a seamless convergence of crypto infrastructure and AI computing.
This unique hybrid model allows IREN to optimize its energy use and operational costs while meeting the soaring global demand for GPU-based computation.
Where IREN Is Investing Now
When asked about capital expenditure priorities, Draper was clear:
“The priority is the AI cloud-services vertical. We are seeing extremely strong demand,” he said.
“AI has the potential to change the way we operate — in individuals’ everyday lives and across corporations. It could represent the next phase of the industrial revolution, or the digital equivalent thereof.”
IREN is channeling its capital into expanding its high-performance computing (HPC) capacity, focusing on data centers with advanced cooling systems and renewable power integration — both essential for GPU-intensive AI workloads.
Power: The New Bottleneck in AI’s Growth
Despite the optimism, Draper acknowledged the industry’s biggest challenge: power access.
“Power is still the number one constraint,” he said.
“There is a lack of data-center space today that can handle the rack densities required for GPUs. To build more, you need land and power — both are becoming increasingly scarce.”
This scarcity is pushing miners, utilities, and AI developers into direct competition for power and land resources — especially in regions with cheap renewable energy.
A New Definition of Mining
As IREN’s cloud-services business expands, the company is redefining what it means to be a “miner.”
Instead of mining digital coins, IREN is now mining compute cycles — powering the next generation of AI models that rely on massive GPU clusters and uninterrupted energy supply.
This transition could inspire similar shifts across the crypto-mining sector, as other operators look to repurpose their infrastructure to meet AI’s computing demands.
While traditional miners face profitability challenges tied to bitcoin’s volatility, IREN’s approach offers a path toward long-term, sustainable growth.
Ecopulse24 Insight
IREN’s transformation highlights a deeper shift in the digital economy — where energy, not code, becomes the ultimate currency.
In the AI era, access to power and computing capacity is as valuable as intellectual property or data.
IREN’s foresight to invest early in energy-dense facilities positions it not only as a tech player but as a critical infrastructure enabler of the next industrial revolution.
As Draper noted, AI’s evolution may echo past technological leaps — from electricity to the internet — with energy serving as the foundation of innovation.
IREN’s 2025 success story may well mark the moment the age of mining gave birth to the age of power.