$IREN (-0.72%) has received $NVDA (-0.55%) received “Exemplar Cloud” status for its deployment of the GB300 NVL72—a seal of quality that NVIDIA awards only after conducting its own review of the infrastructure. This was announced at the same time as the handover of Horizon 1 to Microsoft.
Following certification for the HGX B300 (training workloads) at the end of June (June 29, 2026), IREN has now also received the certification for the GB300 chips.
What this means: NVIDIA has tested and certified IREN’s GB300-NVL72 setup (the current Grace Blackwell Ultra rack system) at the Horizon 1 data center. This certification confirms that the environment can handle demanding AI workloads with the required performance, reliability, and scalability. It serves as a seal of approval from the chip manufacturer for the operator.
The second part of the announcement: Horizon 1 is the first of four 50 MW (IT load) direct liquid-cooled AI cloud tiers that IREN will deliver to Microsoft in 2026 at its Childress (Texas)—as part of the five-year, $9.7 billion contract announced in November 2025. Horizon 2–4 are set to follow later this year.
Overall, these announcements primarily build confidence and underscore the quality of IREN’s infrastructure.