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IREN closes $3.65B GPU loan backed by Microsoft contract

ByRanda MosesRanda Moses
2 mins read
IREN closes $3.65B GPU loan backed by Microsoft contract.
  • IREN closed a $3.65 billion investment grade GPU financing facility.
  • The deal funds hardware for a $9.7 billion AI cloud contract with Microsoft and covers 96% of IREN’s GPU capital costs.
  • IREN is paying 6% to borrow money, and the loan is backed by valuable GPUs and future Microsoft contract revenue.

IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) locked down $3.65 billion in investment-grade debt on Monday. The money pays for GPU hardware under a multiyear AI cloud contract with Microsoft. This is the first deal of its kind in the U.S. private placement market, according to the release.

Fitch rated the facility A, while DBRS called it A(low). Rating agencies see the arrangement as a relatively high-quality debt. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan arranged the deal and helped structure and sell the financing to investors.

The facility is comprised of two pieces: a $2.10 billion private placement carries a fixed rate equivalent to SOFR plus 2.13%. And a $1.55 billion delayed draw term loan floats at SOFR plus 2.25%. IREN hedged the floating piece and landed a blended borrowing cost of 6.00%.

The collateral is NVIDIA GPUs and the contracted cash flows from Microsoft.

IREN funds ~96% of its Microsoft GPU bill

IREN’s GPU bill under the Microsoft contract runs $5.81 billion. The new facility, plus prepayments from Microsoft, covers ~96% of that, or $5.59 billion. The average financing cost across all is 3.31%.

IREN Limited has a $9.7 billion AI cloud contract with Microsoft, spread over five years. The company will deliver GPU capacity to Microsoft across four data centers in Childress, Texas. It operates a 200 megawatt campus there, which is part of a larger 750 megawatt site.

Dell said in November it would supply racks of NVIDIA GB300 GPUs and related equipment for the buildout based on a separate purchase agreement.

Why is IREN’s GPU financing structure the “first” in this space?

GPU financing at investment-grade terms hasn’t existed before in the compute infrastructure sector. Companies deploying thousands of GPUs for AI training face billions in upfront hardware costs. Tapping institutional debt markets at rates below 6.5% beats equity raises or higher rate lending.

“Securing investment-grade financing on these terms reflects both the quality of our customer contracts and the fact that we own the data center infrastructure these GPUs run in,” said Daniel Roberts, IREN’s co-founder and co-CEO. “That combination broadens our access to institutional capital and lowers our cost of capital as we scale.”

IREN plans to have 480 megawatts of AI cloud capacity by the end of 2026.

The deal comes weeks after Bernstein gave IREN an outperform rating, grouping it with Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, and Core Scientific. All four own power and land, which positions them to capture AI data center demand. Among that group, IREN and Core Scientific have moved furthest into contracted AI hosting. The others are earlier in their pivot from pure crypto mining.

IREN’s market cap stood at $23.62 billion as of Monday. The stock is exchanging hands at $64.66, up by 1.75% based on Google Finance data. Its current ratio of 3.72 suggests comfortable short-term liquidity even after adding $3.65 billion in new obligations.

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FAQs

How much of IREN's GPU costs does the new financing cover?

Combined with Microsoft's prepayments, the $3.65 billion facility funds $5.59 billion of the $5.81 billion in GPU capital expenditures under the contract. That's about 96%.

What interest rate did IREN get on the GPU financing?

IREN landed a blended cost of debt at 6.00%. The private placement tranche carries a fixed rate equivalent to SOFR plus 2.13%. The term loan floats at SOFR plus 2.25%.

Where will the GPUs funded by this deal be deployed?

The hardware goes into four data centers in Childress, Texas, where IREN operates a 200 megawatt campus within a 750 megawatt site.

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Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.

Randa Moses

Randa Moses

Randa Moses is an editor and reporter at Cryptopolitan covering tech, AI, robotics, crypto, scams, and hacks. She has worked in the crypto space since 2017. She held roles at Forward Protocol, AmaZix, and Cryptosomniac. Randa holds a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Bradford.

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