$IREN: The best positioned data center company Despite the macro turmoil of the Iran mess, compute prices are currently increasing at an incredible pace. Nvidia's H100 GPUs, the hardware generation that came before Blackwell, are now being leased out for >30% higher prices than just a couple of quarters ago. Keep in mind, that's an older generation (~3 years old), so you'd think prices would move down as production for the new and much more powerful Blackwell chips is ramping up. But we are seeing the exact opposite take place. Essentially every single GPU model, both new and old, has seen an increase in leasing prices over the past weeks and months. Demand for AI compute simply can't keep up with the available supply, particularly data center supply. Just having access to GPUs isn't enough. Every cloud provider needs access to working data centers. The problem is that developing modern day data centers, capable of running the latest AI hardware, comes with a bunch of bottlenecks that can't easily be overcome unless you have prepared for them years in advance. One key factor is access to power. Every data center needs energy to run. Yet no company can simply plug into their local electricity grid without the required permits and approvals. You first have to conduct grid studies to see if your project can be eligible to receive a constant flow of power, followed by forming interconnection agreements with utilities, and ultimately overcoming any local administrative and regulatory hurdles. Everybody is rushing to secure power, administrative bodies are completely overwhelmed by the volume of requests, leading to greatly extended approval timelines. Therefore, securing grid connected electricity can take upwards of 5-7 years if you start today. Plan B is to produce power yourself via on-site gas turbines. However, this comes with a bunch of its own headwinds. It adds operational complexity, higher CapEx and OpEx, increased safety risks, as well as increased regulatory and environmental scrutiny. Essentially you need to become an industry expert of on-site gas generation, which opens the door for the likes of $NUAI. Once you figure out the power bottleneck, you must deal with constraints across your supply chain. Long lead items like transformers which are necessary to convert voltage into usable power for data centers take upwards of 2 years to procure, as the rate of manufacturing can't keep up with demand. Similar to most long lead items like back-up diesel generators, switchgear, and battery and UPS systems. Finally, there is the shortage of labor supply. Building a gigawatt scale data center requires thousands of highly specialized workers, which are often in short supply. The AI buildout has created a simultaneous surge in demand for tradespeople across hundreds of concurrent projects nationwide, forcing developers to compete fiercely for the same limited talent pool. All these bottlenecks are leading to issues we are seeing today: projects not getting off the ground, delayed development timelines, and outright cancellations. Bloomberg recently reported that more than half of the data center projects planned for 2026 will be delayed. This backdrop plays exceptionally well into the hands of what I'd argue is the best positioned data center company right now: $IREN. $IREN is one of the very few players that has been preparing for all of these bottlenecks since day one. They started the procurement of grid-connected power 7+ years ago, during a time where virtually nobody was concerned about access to energy. As a result, the company has now secured an enormous 4.5 GW power portfolio. This firmly places $IREN next to Google and Amazon in terms of self owned grid connected power. Most new investors and analysts falsely label $IREN as a $BTC miner that "pivoted" towards AI cloud. But that's wrong. Since its IPO, management has consistently positioned itself as a disruptive data center platform. …Mining Bitcoin was simply the most pragmatic way to get started and scale the data center footprint rapidly in a cost effective manner. The founders saw the digital world would scale exponentially, with the underlying core infrastructure of the real world not able to keep up - which is exactly what's happening right now. This is why $IREN has been securing gigawatts of power in regions of abundant energy for pennies on the dollar and with minimal friction. This mindset and long-term strategy is why management is constantly ahead of the curve when it comes to securing long lead items years in advance for sites that have yet to energize. I remember back in 2024, when management talked about having secured long lead items for its Sweetwater campus whose energization date was 2 years away. Today $IREN is reaping the benefits of that calculated decision by being on track to energize the 1.4 GW project this quarter, positioning the company with one of the largest grid connected data centers in the world. In essence, $IREN is much more than just a regular cloud provider. It’s effectively the only fully vertically integrated cloud platform that exclusively houses its GPUs in self developed data centers. The real advantage here isn't just improved cost structures, but that management has a much greater degree of control over its own destiny. As the head contractor of all of its data center projects, $IREN controls everything from supply chain management to sourcing labor. If one aspect of a buildout is facing unexpected delays, management can quickly allocate labor and resources towards another section, significantly reducing the risk of delays. There are simply no other cloud providers with this level of control and flexibility over their pipeline development. And in a world that is severely compute constrained, these attributes are worth gold. Demand is accelerating, supply can't keep up, and leasing prices for GPUs are skyrocketing. $IREN is in a very unique position to capitalize on these market circumstances in a major way. The market clearly hasn't fully priced this in yet.