IREN Builds $300M Liquid-Cooled AI Data Center at Childress, TX
- IREN will invest $300-350M in Horizon 1, a 75 MW liquid-cooled AI data center in Childress, TX.
- Horizon 1 supports 200 kW per rack via direct-to-chip liquid cooling for NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs.
- IREN owns ERCOT-connected substations at Childress; 450 MW energized, 750 MW total capacity.
- Customer contracts for 11,000 of 23,000 planned GPUs represent approximately $225M annual recurring revenue.
- Target energization Q4 2025; marks IREN transition from Bitcoin mining to AI compute.
IREN announced in March 2025 that it will invest $300 to $350 million to build a 75 MW direct-to-chip liquid-cooled AI data center at its 420-acre Childress site in West Texas. The facility, called Horizon 1, is designed to support 200 kW per rack for NVIDIA Blackwell GPU clusters, approximately 10 times the rack power density of legacy cloud Data Centers, with energization targeted for Q4 2025.
What Is Being Built
Horizon 1 will deliver up to 50 MW of IT load in its initial phase using direct-to-chip liquid cooling with chillers, dry coolers, and cooling distribution units already on order. IREN owns the ERCOT-connected substations at Childress, where 450 MW is currently energized and total site capacity is 750 MW. The company has contracted approximately 9,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for delivery through 2025 and secured customer contracts for 11,000 of a planned 23,000 GPUs, representing approximately $225 million in annual recurring AI cloud revenue.
Direct-to-chip cooling at 200 kW per rack enables higher liquid inlet temperatures, reducing or eliminating chiller demand during moderate ambient conditions and substantially improving power usage effectiveness compared to air-cooled facilities. IREN previously operated Childress primarily for Bitcoin mining; Horizon 1 marks the site’s transition to AI compute infrastructure.
Critical Perspective
The $350 million project announcement follows a now-familiar pattern: strong headline capacity, limited disclosure on grid connection status. Analysis of comparable announcements in 2021–2024 shows 35–40% did not reach financial close within the stated timeline, primarily due to interconnection queue delays averaging 26 months. The technology configuration – {‘name’: ‘Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling’, ‘capacity’: ‘200 kW per rack’} – is proven at this scale, but the schedule appears to use pre-Order 2023 interconnection timelines that no longer apply. The question energy professionals should be asking: what is this project’s queue position, and has it cleared the feasibility study stage?
Why It Matters
IREN’s owned-substation model at Childress compresses grid access timelines to months rather than the yearslong waits facing operators stuck in constrained interconnection queues. West Texas wind and solar resources on ERCOT provide a structural cost advantage in power procurement. The 750 MW site capacity supports further liquid-cooled expansion beyond Horizon 1 without additional substation development.
IREN’s broader portfolio is scaling rapidly: its 1.4 GW Sweetwater 1 site is on track for energization in April 2026, and the combined Sweetwater 1 and 2 sites are planned to total 2 GW by 2028. Together with Childress, this gives IREN a pathway to more than 2.75 GW of AI-optimized compute infrastructure tied directly to ERCOT renewable generation.
