Bitcoin miner IREN targets Europe AI cloud growth with Nostrum deal

IREN Limited completed its acquisition of Ingenostrum, S.L., known as Nostrum Group, giving the Bitcoin miner a new base for AI cloud growth in Europe. 

The deal adds about 490 megawatts of secured, grid-connected power in Spain and a local development pipeline, according to a Monday press release.

The acquisition also brings more than 50 employees across development, engineering, construction and operations. Nostrum’s operations will continue under the IREN brand, making Spain IREN’s first European market as it expands beyond its existing power footprint.

“Europe is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for AI infrastructure, and Spain is among its most compelling entry points,” Daniel Roberts, IREN co-founder and co-CEO, said. He cited renewable power and fiber connectivity as reasons for the move.

Nostrum deal supports AI cloud shift

The acquisition comes as IREN moves deeper into AI cloud services. The company said Nostrum gives it secured power today, a development pipeline and a local team that can support European demand for AI infrastructure.

“We have spent years assembling one of Spain’s most advanced AI infrastructure pipelines,” Gabriel Nebreda, CEO of Nostrum Group, said. 

He added that joining IREN would help the group develop the pipeline at the speed and scale Europe’s AI infrastructure demand requires.

IREN’s latest quarterly data shows why the shift matters. For the quarter ended March 31, Bitcoin mining revenue fell to $111.2 million from $167.4 million in the previous quarter. AI cloud services revenue rose to $33.6 million from $17.3 million over the same period.

Mining pressure pushes data center growth

The revenue mix shows how mining economics have changed. IREN said lower average Bitcoin prices and the removal of mining hardware ahead of GPU installation reduced mining revenue. The company also reported a net loss of $247.8 million, including non-cash impairments tied mainly to decommissioned mining hardware.

“The world is structurally short compute, and the bottleneck is delivered data center and GPU capacity,” Roberts said in IREN’s Q3 update. 

He said this setup plays into IREN’s focus on securing power, developing land, building data centers and bringing compute online at scale.

The company has signed a five-year, $3.4 billion AI cloud contract with NVIDIA and is supporting its $9.7 billion Microsoft cloud deal at Childress in Texas. IREN is targeting 480MW of AI cloud capacity in 2026 and $3.7 billion in annual recurring revenue by year-end.

European miners join the AI race

IREN is not the only Bitcoin miner moving toward AI infrastructure in Europe. HIVE Digital has been converting a data center in Boden, Sweden into a Tier-3 liquid-cooled high-performance computing facility designed to support 2,000 NVIDIA GPUs across the European Union.

Bitdeer is also preparing AI conversions. Its December operations update listed Tydal-2 in Norway as 175MW of online crypto capacity converting to AI by Q4 2026. It also listed AI conversions at Wenatchee, Washington and Knoxville, Tennessee.

The trend reflects a wider shift among miners that already control power, land and cooling infrastructure. As previously noted, public miners are now being valued not only on Bitcoin production, but also on their ability to deliver AI compute capacity under long-term contracts.