Yahoo Finance Iris Energy Tumbles After Short Seller Culper Questions AI Aspirations
(Bloomberg) -- Iris Energy’s shares fell the most since January after Culper Research questioned the Bitcoin mining company’s ability to serve the high performance computers which make generative AI possible.
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Because of a steep decline in the profitability of mining Bitcoin, some industry participants are looking to redirect their energy infrastructure for high-performance computing. The company’s data centers lack the power required to do so, Culper alleged in the report.
A spokesperson in the US for Sydney-based Iris Energy said the company didn’t have any immediate comment.
Shares of Iris Energy fell 13%, after slumping as much as 21%. The stock has jumped about 65% in the past year.
Culper also noted that Iris’ Co-Chief Executive Officers Daniel and Will Roberts have been selling shares for the first time since the company’s initial public offering in 2021. Iris Energy has burned through $716 million in cash since 2020, the activist research firm said.
Iris Energy “was founded in 2018 but now in 2024 promotes itself as an HPC data center play,” Culper posted on X. “This is a contrived, nonsense pivot reminiscent of COVID-19 era biotech scams.”
Analysts at Bernstein SG, which initiated coverage this week on Iris Energy, disputed several of the points made by Culper. Bernstein has an “Outperform” rating and a target price of $26 for the shares of the company.
--With assistance from Katrina Compoli.
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