IREN (IREN.US) mystery customer surfaced? Anthropic is rumored to have signed a multi-year cloud contract

The Zhitong Finance App learned that there were previous reports that Anthropic was the mysterious AI cloud customer mentioned in IREN Ltd. (IREN.US)'s earnings call a few months ago. IREN's night trading surged 9.29% on Sunday evening. “The Information” published an analysis report on the economics of Anthropic data center leasing, detailing how the AI lab is driving its cloud partners to accelerate the construction of new data centers. According to AI Weekly, citing the report, “People familiar with the matter revealed that Anthropic also has an unannounced multi-year cloud agreement with IREN.”

According to the report, Anthropic's efforts to rapidly expand computing power “increasingly rely on current and former Bitcoin mining companies such as Hut 8, TeraWolf, iREN, and NScale.” Neither Anthropic nor IREN have commented on the rumours of the collaboration.

In August of this year, IREN revealed that it had signed an agreement with a leading AI lab, but did not disclose the name of the customer. CEO Daniel Roberts said on the company's fourth fiscal quarter earnings call: “First, on the customer side. The new multi-year cloud contract includes Cohere, Prometheus, Perplexity, Figure AI, Fal AI, Higgsfield AI, and in addition to a leading cutting-edge AI laboratory, the name of which we cannot disclose for the time being.”

If Anthropic joins the customer list, it will significantly boost IREN and is expected to strengthen its position as an AI cloud infrastructure provider at a time when demand for computing power surges.

IREN: Traditional data centers raise concerns

IREN shares were under pressure this past week after SemiAnalysis questioned the quality of operation of the traditional data center in British Columbia, an AI infrastructure provider transformed by a Bitcoin mining company. SemiAnalysis posted a series of posts on the X platform on Wednesday saying it had heard reports from multiple customers and end users about IREN's Prince George and Mackenzie sites, which users described as “the worst site in the industry.”

As of press release, iREN is the most popular stock symbol on StockTwits. Retail sentiment is “bullish”, and many traders expect the stock to continue to rise on Monday. One trader wrote, “IREN either has a company that needs to confirm the transaction; otherwise, it's a pull deal.” Another said, “Based on Anthropic's big news, IREN is expected to have a 20% increase. I started going long with an overnight trade of $36.75, and the current moving stop loss is set at $35.95.”

IREN is the weakest performing individual in the new cloud service provider sector, which also includes CoreWeave (CRWV.US) and Nebius (NBIS.US). IREN's stock price has fallen by a cumulative total of nearly 7% since this year.