IREN data centers: 7 sites mapped

IREN, the Australia-based company formerly called Iris Energy, started as a bitcoin miner and is turning its sites into AI data centers. It is still mining but winding that business down and putting its cash into renting out GPUs. Its turning point came in November 2025, when Microsoft signed a five-year, $9.7 billion contract for access to Nvidia GB300 chips, paying 20 percent up front; IREN in turn agreed to buy $5.8 billion of GPUs and equipment from Dell. Those chips go to its 750-megawatt campus in Childress, Texas, where it is building 200 MW of liquid-cooled data centers, the Horizon buildings, for Microsoft. In August 2026 Microsoft accepted Horizon 1, the first of four 50MW liquid-cooled buildings due for delivery at Childress this year, and IREN said it was targeting 480MW of gross AI cloud capacity in 2026 and 1.2GW in 2027.

Its next site is far larger. Outside Sweetwater in Fisher County, West Texas, IREN is developing two campuses totaling 2 gigawatts on 2,200 acres. It has energized the substation at the 1,700-acre Sweetwater 1, with power ramping up as data centers are built, and expects to energize the 500-acre Sweetwater 2 in 2028. In May 2026 IREN said it would use Nvidia's architecture to build out the Sweetwater campus, with about 300 construction workers already on site and more buildings to follow through 2027 and beyond.

In British Columbia, where it began, IREN runs three former bitcoin sites at Prince George, Mackenzie and Canal Flats, built partly on infrastructure left by closed pulp and lumber mills and powered by BC Hydro. The province has made its ban on new crypto mining connections permanent and, from 2026, makes AI data centers compete for a combined 300 MW over two years. "Whenever you have a situation where governments are determining allocation of resources rather than markets, I think it generally produces less efficient outcomes," said chief commercial officer Kent Draper. Kate Harland of the Canadian Climate Institute said the old first-come, first-served system gave BC Hydro "very little ability" to say no to crypto miners.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.