May 26 (Reuters) - Data center operator IREN said on Tuesday it has agreed to buy Nvidia's air-cooled Blackwell systems from Dell for about $1.6 billion, as it aims to bring more capacity online to keep up with soaring AI demand.
The deal is to service its previously announced five-year $3.4 billion cloud AI service contract with Dell, an AI server maker, IREN said in a statement.
• The Blackwell systems will be set up across existing data centers at IREN's Childress, Texas, campus, and are expected to be ready by early 2027.
• Upon commissioning, the contract is expected to increase IREN's annualized run-rate revenue (ARR) to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion, reflecting ongoing progress in bringing GPU capacity online.
• The purchase price of $1.6 billion covers all equipment and services, including GPUs, servers, storage, networking, ancillary equipment, integration services and warranties, with payments made after delivery, IREN said.
• "Securing capacity and accelerating commissioning are our top priorities in a market where time-to-compute is everything," according to IREN Co-CEO Daniel Roberts.
• Separately, Nvidia said earlier this month that it would invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN, as part of a broader deal to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of infrastructure.
• In November, Microsoft struck a $9.7 billion deal with IREN that includes access to Nvidia's advanced chips.
(Reporting by Anuja Bharat Mistry in Bengaluru and Juby Babu in Mexico City; editing by Alan Barona)
