IREN Stock Climbs 5% Overnight As Speculation Builds Over Anthropic Contract

• Many retail traders believe Anthropic’s RFP confirms that it is in the final stages of contracting IREN.
• Anthropic could make the final decision in six weeks, The Australian Financial Review reported.
• IREN trended on Stocktwits late Sunday, with a ‘bullish’ retail sentiment reading.

IREN Ltd. shares rose nearly 5% in overnight trading on Sunday after a report revealed that Anthropic had privately tendered for $15 billion in cloud capacity in Australia, a development many believe puts the neocloud company in pole position to land a significant contract with the AI startup.

Anthropic is seeking to procure at least 1.4 gigawatts of cloud capacity from Australian data centers and wants a local company to build and operate a data center campus of that scale, according to the tender, which was floated privately and reviewed by The Australian Financial Review (AFR).

The request for proposals (RFP), which landed on the desks of CDC Data Centers, AirTrunk, NextDC, Iren and Stack, among other players, culminated in an initial round of proposals in March, according to the report. A handful of parties were invited to on-site meetings in Canberra in early April, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei visited the city to meet Treasurer Jim Chalmers. 

As of Sunday, Anthropic was said to be at least six weeks away from making a final decision, with the expectation that it could split the deal into four or five smaller contracts rather than signing with just one data center landlord.

IREN’s Pivot To Cloud Computing

The report comes after months of speculation that IREN has been in talks with the AI Startup for a cloud deal. 

New South Wales-headquartered IREN has emerged as a closely watched stock, as the company pivots away from pure-play crypto mining toward AI cloud computing.

The move is anchored by two major milestones: a landmark agreement with Microsoft, signed in November 2025, that includes a 200-megawatt lease at its Childress facility, and a five-year contract worth an estimated $9.7 billion tied to Nvidia's GB300 GPU capacity.

Retail View On IREN, Neocloud Operators

IREN was trending among the top five tickers on Stocktwits late Sunday. Retail sentiment for the stock climbed in July and was ‘bullish’ as of the last reading, with message volume increasing by 336% over the past week.

“BIG BIG NEWS!!! Probably the BIGGEST news ever!!! On twitter a huge account, Serenity, who has a MILLION followers and was a big IREN bear has now turned MEGA BULLISH along with another former bear, NightHawk Capital, and put a $500 target on IREN!!! Why? It leaked that ANTHROPIC is looking to BUY 1.4GW of data center capacity in Australia and  ONLY IREN HAS THAT!” a trader wrote.

In fact, the entire neocloud space is being closely watched amid surging demand for cloud capacity from AI firms, hyperscalers, and tech companies. 

About 41% of some 4,700 respondents to an ongoing Stocktwits poll said they would bet on Nebius as their cloud stock of choice; IREN was second with 23% of voters.
 

IREN stock is up 3% year-to-date, based on its closing price on Thursday. 

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