Bitcoin miner IREN ventures into AI with GPU pilot and Morgan Stanley's guidance

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Bitcoin miner IREN (formerly known as Iris Energy) is the latest crypto mining company looking to profit from the artificial intelligence market boom, according to its July 23 Analyst & Investor Day presentation.

The planned presentation shows that the firm will launch a GPU pilot at its Childress site in Prince George.

This follows the miner’s July 16 appointment of banking giant Morgan Stanley as its financial advisor to evaluate monetization opportunities in the AI data center market.

Is IREN ready for AI pivot?

This move comes less than two weeks after short seller Culper Research questioned IREN’s capacity to support the high-performance computers (HPC) essential for generative AI.

According to the short seller, IREN’s flagship Childress buildout lacks numerous critical features for HPC applications. It stated:

“IREN talks a big game of its HPC plans, but ultimately seems entirely disinterested in actually doing what it takes to compete in the space. Look no further than IREN’s own financials: the Company has spent less than $1 million per MW to build out its existing footprint, and tells investors it will complete the Childress build for a similar sub- $1 million per MW figure. Meanwhile, leading operators, analysts, and experts all confirm that the true cost to develop an HPC-ready data center is ~$10 to $20 million per MW.”

However, Mathew Sigel, the head of digital assets research at VanEck, said IREN’s latest announcement directly refutes “the Culper short report which claimed the site is not suitable to AI/HPC due to Lack of Power Redundancy, Liquid Cooling and Backup Fiber.”

IREN could not be immediately reached for comment as of press time.

Other miners advance towards AI

While uncertainty surrounds IREN AI pivot efforts, other crypto mining companies are making strides in their AI adventure as they seek to diversify their earnings following the April halving event, which impacted their revenues.

Over the past months, Bitcoin miner Core Scientific signed a 12-year deal with CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed startup, that would generate more than $1 billion in revenue. Further, Hut 8 announced it raised $150 million in debt from private equity firm Coatue to expand its AI data center portfolio.