IREN's Stock 'Rollercoaster' on OpenAI, DeepSeek Headwinds... "Year-end Target $4 Billion"

▲ IREN/AI generated image

IREN Limited (IREN) plummeted 5% in early trading but then recovered most of its losses. Concerns about a slowdown in AI infrastructure investment rattled the stock.

According to Benzinga on September 14 (local time), selling pressure spread to AI power and computing infrastructure companies, including IREN. This was influenced by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raising the need to voluntarily slow down the development pace of advanced AI models.

If the AI development race actually slows down, short-term computing demand could also weaken. This is because the pace of facility expansion by large cloud companies and AI research labs might slow. Reports that OpenAI postponed its IPO until at least 2027 also put pressure on investor sentiment.

DeepSeek's V4.1 Flash, released last Friday, added to the burden. The model was found to significantly reduce hardware and storage usage. This raised concerns that the short-term revenue expectations for GPU cloud companies, which have been building large-scale high-performance computing facilities, might be lowered.

However, IREN's business expansion plans remain in place. The company recorded annual revenue of $707 million in fiscal year 2026. As of the end of August, its operating annualized recurring revenue reached $1 billion. Based on a multi-year contract with Microsoft and expanded GPU cloud contracts, the company has set a goal to achieve $4 billion in operating annualized recurring revenue by the end of the year.

At the Childress campus in Texas, the company is also pushing for the operation of liquid-cooled Horizon 2-4 facilities. Benzinga reported that while concerns about a slowdown in AI investment are pressuring investor sentiment, IREN's large-scale power acquisition plans and high-density data center development foundation remain key assets for its next-generation computing infrastructure business.

[Article Key Summary]

-IREN plummeted 5% in early trading due to concerns about a slowdown in AI infrastructure investment but then recovered most of its losses.

-OpenAI's postponed IPO and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash's low hardware usage raised concerns about GPU cloud demand.

-IREN maintains its goal of achieving $4 billion in operating annualized recurring revenue by the end of the year.

*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only and we are not responsible for any investment losses based on it. The content should be interpreted for informational purposes only.*