AI data center operator IREN to acquire Mirantis for $625M

Artificial intelligence data center operator IREN Ltd. today announced plans to acquire Mirantis Inc., a provider of infrastructure management software.

The all-stock transaction is worth $625 million. Mirantis previously raised about $220 million in funding from Intel Corp., Goldman Sachs and other investors.

New York-based IREN launched in 2018 as an Australian bitcoin mining startup called Iris Energy. In early 2024, the company rebranded and shifted its focus to AI infrastructure. Last November, it won a $9.7 billion contract to provide Microsoft Corp. with 200 megawatts of AI computing capacity. 

IREN operates a public cloud platform that offers access to bare metal graphics card servers. Customers with more advanced requirements can partner with the company to set up custom AI data centers. IREN constructs the facilities on its own data center campuses, which have existing power delivery infrastructure that removes the need to build everything from scratch.

The company’s flagship campus in Sweetwater, Texas, has access to 2 gigawatts of electricity. The 1,800-acre site can host 700,000 liquid-cooled Nvidia Corp. graphics cards.

Mirantis, the company that IREN is acquiring, has also shifted its business model over the years. It originally focused on commercializing an open-source data center management platform called OpenStack. Today, Mirantis’ flagship product is k0rdent, a platform that also eases infrastructure management tasks but does so differently.

The software enables administrators to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters through a centralized interface. A module called the Services Controller makes it possible to extend a Kubernetes cluster with external tools such as load balancers. Another component, CAPI, enables k0rdent to run on popular public clouds.

The platform allows administrators to save the configuration of a Kubernetes environment in a template. That template can be used to launch identically-configured clusters without manually setting them up, which saves time and reduces the risk of human error. After the initial cluster deployment process is complete, administrators can use k0rdent to carry out day-to-day maintenance tasks.

Some of the platform’s features are specifically geared toward AI clusters. It enables administrators to split a graphics card into multiple virtual chips and assign each one to a different workload, an arrangement that can boost hardware utilization. An inference autoscaling feature automatically adjust the amount of hardware allocated to an AI application based on the number of prompts it receives.

IREN says that Mirantis’ technology will enable it to more quickly deploy customer workloads on its infrastructure. The deal will also see the company gain technical support and service delivery know-how along with upselling opportunities. Mirantis has an installed base of more than 1,500 enterprises, many of which use its platform to run AI workloads. 

“Our contributions to k0rdent, Kubernetes, k0s, OpenStack and more continue,” Chief Technology Officer Shaun O’Meara wrote in a blog post today. “The maintainers and contributors working on those projects stay in place. K0rdent remains open source.”

Image: Mirantis