Iris Energy (IREN) added to Russell 1000 Index following successful pivot from mining to AI cloud operations.

Cryptocurrency miner IREN Limited has successfully secured a position in the Russell 1000 Index as the company accelerates its transition into an artificial intelligence cloud provider. The inclusion became operational following the conclusion of market trading after FTSE Russell completed its yearly index reconstitution.

The Russell 1000 represents approximately 93% of the entire United States equity market, serving as a performance benchmark tracking roughly 1,000 of the largest domestic public corporations by market capitalization.

IREN, formerly recognized as Iris Energy, was established in 2019 to secure Bitcoin rewards by resolving cryptographic puzzles. However, facing escalating energy expenses and decreasing mining profit margins, the company redirected its business focus toward artificial intelligence infrastructure.

This corporate transformation is supported by a five-year GPU cloud agreement valued at approximately $9.7 billion with Microsoft, which involves deploying Nvidia GB300 microchips at a 750-megawatt campus in Childress, Texas. The contract is projected to unlock an estimated $1.94 billion in annualized run-rate revenue for the computing infrastructure firm.

Concurrently, Nvidia obtained a five-year right to acquire up to 30 million shares of IREN, representing a potential $2.1 billion equity stake, while cooperating on up to 5 gigawatts of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Other digital asset enterprises also qualified for the large-cap stock index during the annual rebuild. BitMine Immersion Technologies, which stands as the largest public Ethereum treasury operation, was among those added. BitMine holds approximately 5.67 million ETH, representing about 4.7% of the total circulating supply, while maintaining zero debt obligations. Market analysts have projected that the addition of BitMine into the index could potentially stimulate up to $2.15 billion in passive investment inflows.

These newly added entities join existing crypto-adjacent corporations within the Russell 1000 Index, including MicroStrategy, Coinbase, and Robinhood.

At the time of publication, IREN stock experienced a 4.91% intraday decline, with shares trading at $44.89.