anthropic has signed a multiyear cloud deal with iren, an australian bitcoin miner listed on nasdaq. the information reported the deal, and neither company has announced it. the iren contract is the latest piece of roughly $530b in data-center leases that anthropic is working to bring online.
why timing matters for anthropic's data centers
the information's newsletter estimates that a 245 mw site online one month early would add more than $1.3b in revenue. that is about $5.3m of revenue per megawatt for a single month. at that rate, one month on a large site is worth more than a billion dollars to anthropic.
why anthropic relies on bitcoin miners
the same report says anthropic's build-out depends more and more on current and former bitcoin miners. four companies are named:
- hut 8
- terawulf
- iren
- nscale
what these companies hold is scarce grid connections. some of their sites are former smelter and hydrogen plants, built for heavy power loads.
what the deal means
for anthropic, the main bottleneck is access to existing power infrastructure. bitcoin miners already control these grid connections, and ai labs are paying to secure access to them.
sources
- anthropic's unannounced cloud deal with iren, the information – reported by
- iren limited annual report (form 10-k), sec – australian company, shares listed on nasdaq
