$Iris Energy (IREN.US)$ shares are up 29% on Wednesday after executives said the company had received interest from an artificial intelligence (AI) firm and mentioned a potential dividend in BTC during an earnings conference call.
The Sydney-based company has been approached by a hyperscaler firm (large cloud service provider) for potentially hosting computing infrastructure at IREN's Sweetwater mining site in Texas, co-CEO and co-founder Daniel Roberts said on the call.
"Two hours ago, we got an email from a trillion-dollar hyperscaler that said they weren't interested in Sweetwater, and now they are," Roberts said without giving out too many details.
"We will continue not to provide guidance on specific terms or timing, given the uncertainties. Given the nature that we are dealing with counterparties, it is not all within our control. However, we continue to progress negotiations with some very large counterparties and hyperscalers," he said.
IREN is one of many miners attempting to diversify their revenue sources by securely hosting big tech companies' data centers for running machines to support surging demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The shift started earlier this year after Bitcoin's fourth halving cut rewards by 50%, squeezing miners' profit margins. Rival Core Scientific (CORZ) started the trend by signing AI hosting deals for billions of dollars, leading to its stock price surging and others to follow suit.
