IREN and TeraWulf (WULF) shares surged after both firms unveiled multi-billion-dollar borrowing plans to bankroll a shift from Bitcoin mining to AI and high-performance-compute facilities. The announcements shuffle risk and cash among investors, power suppliers, corporate clients, institutional treasurers, and altcoin traders who hold the stocks.
TeraWulf locked in a Google-led loan of $3.2 billion; the money will grow the Lake Mariner site from 245 megawatts of crypto rigs to about 360 megawatts of HPC gear contracted to Google or Fluidstack. Google also bought 14 percent of WULF equity, a move that trims TeraWulf’s balance sheet risk.
At the same time, IREN sold $1 billion of convertible senior notes due 2031, added to an earlier $500 million note, and earmarked $674 million of the total for GPU orders. IREN has doubled its AI cloud fleet to 23,000 GPUs and guides for annual recurring revenue above $500 million by the first quarter of 2026. IREN stock has climbed more than 50 percent since late September on the back of this story.
Analysts such as Bernstein now label both issuers “AI infrastructure winners”, and the bonds as well as shares have entered crypto- and infrastructure-tracking funds.
The importance of AI data centers
The firms gain heavier balance sheet leverage but with investment-grade partners; grid demand shifts from random mining loads to steady compute jobs; and revenue turns contractual or recurring instead of tied to coin price swings.
The switch demands flawless tech roll-outs and long-term power contracts. Higher debt loads leave both issuers exposed to interest rate moves and to any slump in AI demand. Traders and treasury desks must watch liquidity in the convertibles and in equities tied to server leasing contracts.
IREN’s next checkpoint is to top $500 million ARR in Q1 2026, a yardstick for the market’s faith in the AI pivot.
