A Microsoft-requested design change at one of Iren's data centers has delayed the company's posting of $4 billion in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

In neocloud Iren's earnings call, posted on November 5, co-CEO and co-founder Daniel Roberts told investors: "In July, we said more than $4bn of operating ARR was targeted to be online by year-end. It's now January.

"Two reasons: one, a customer asked for a design change, which we agreed to, and it sits outside the original scope; and two, supplier timing. The data centers are practically done, and we're waiting for the remaining equipment to arrive to finish commissioning. If suppliers deliver, we're targeting January. If they're late, as suppliers have been across the industry this year, it may run to the end of February."

He later expanded on the issue, noting that the company has handed over the Horizon 1 data center to Microsoft. "Subsequent to that, they made a request to reconfigure and upgrade some of the network infrastructure. And the purpose of that was really to enable the 200MW of capacity to service these latest-generation frontier models. And not everything – this market moves very quickly, right? So signing the contract back in 2025, not everything was contemplated. So look, we said yes. Of course, no problems. We're here to say yes to customers, not no. As a result, there will be a small delay."

Once live, Iren will have 300MW of capacity operational.

The Horizon data centers are all being developed for Microsoft, with Roberts adding that Horizon 2 is built, and "power's on at the rack in all three halls, the GPUs are racked, the fiber's in, Dell is actually commissioning now. So there's one integrated test there. Horizon 3 has got all the GPUs on site; all three halls are energized. Horizon 4's GPUs are delivering in the coming weeks."

In terms of capex related to the upgrades, Roberts described it as "immaterial against the backdrop of the capex for the broader cluster."

Microsoft, in its own earnings call in late October, noted that it had brought 24 new data centers online, but reported lower-than-expected capex because a number of deals with neoclouds were delayed.

In the earnings call, Iren noted the challenges facing the company at present, including supplier delays, and that "capital markets have become more selective in the last few weeks. And the questions have undoubtedly moved from how big the contract is to whether it can be delivered, financed, and run at a profit."

In response, Roberts noted that the company has been able to deliver Horizon 1 from civils to a validated GB300 cluster in 14 months, that its operating capacity has increased by 127 percent to 100MW, and that its AI cloud ran with an 86 percent gross margin.

While the company now has 100MW live, it claims to have more than 5GW of secured power and 30,000 acres of land secured

Iren has, in the 12 months to September, raised $19bn, including $6.5bn of GPU financing since May at six percent to 9.5 percent.

He added that average revenue for its three- and five-year contracts now supports GPU paybacks of around 18 months. H100s have also been sold to customers at double pricing, reflecting demand.

"We just had a customer agree to fund 90 percent of the GPU capex. We signed a short-term deal at $40 million per megawatt. We had one of the leading frontier AI labs, the same one we announced previously a couple of months ago, expand their capacity again," said Roberts.

Revenue for the quarter was $228m, up 66 percent sequentially, of which AI cloud contributed $200m, up 182 percent sequentially. Iren has a $20bn backlog, up from Iren's remaining performance obligations in the previous quarter of $16.6bn, while the aggregate contracted value of lease arrangements was approximately $11.4bn.

The company posted a net loss of $263 million, down from the prior quarter's $684m.

Roberts has said that by June 2027, the company expects to have $25bn in data center and GPU assets. Currently, the company has $20.6bn of total assets, including $12.3bn of property, plant and equipment. That includes $6bn of unencumbered data center assets.

Cash totaled $5.8bn, including $2.3bn of restricted cash set aside primarily to finance GPU deployments. Total debt was $10.2bn, largely in low-coupon convertible notes and with maturities concentrated in 2032 and beyond.

Also mentioned in the call were efforts to continue to speed up data center deployment. According to Roberts, Iren has dedicated teams internally looking into "construction methodologies and making things quicker and easier."

"One is modularization and the ability to plug and play more components on site. So having that standardized methodology, standardized supply chain, so that it does become more plug-and-play, and moving a lot of the construction offsite into factories where it's more scalable. So the modular design is something that we've been looking at for quite some time."

Following the earnings call, Iren's stock value closed at $18.90, down from a November high of $25.00. In May, the company's stock value surpassed $60 a share.