IREN shares fell after reports alleged repeated reliability problems at two British Columbia data centers, turning uptime at older facilities into a test of the company's credibility as an AI infrastructure operator.
SemiAnalysis cited customer accounts of extended power outages, network disruptions, storage failures and air-quality control problems at IREN's Prince George and Mackenzie sites. The original market report placed IREN down about 4%, compared with a smaller decline for the broader data center ETF and Core Scientific.
The allegations are material because IREN owns and operates infrastructure while selling computing capacity to customers. If a site cannot deliver contracted availability, the consequences could include service credits, lost renewals, slower customer acquisition or additional capital spending.
But the evidence has important limits. The claims were compiled from customer reports rather than audited uptime data, IREN had not issued a detailed response, and the reporting identified no customer termination or quantified revenue loss.
IREN's fiscal 2026 filing confirms that its British Columbia footprint remains part of its expansion plan. The company said it planned new liquid-cooled deployments at Mackenzie, Canal Flats and Prince George during 2027 to use available power headroom. That makes operational reliability relevant not only to current service but also to future capacity.
The company also reported that AI Cloud Services revenue rose to $128.8 million in fiscal 2026 from $16.4 million a year earlier. Rapid growth raises the cost of an operational failure because more customers and revenue depend on the platform, but it also means isolated complaints should not be treated as proof that the entire network is unreliable.
Investors need three pieces of evidence: a direct response from IREN, facility-level uptime or service-level performance data, and any disclosure about customer credits, cancellations or remediation spending. Without those details, the allegations represent a credible operational risk rather than a verified financial loss.
The market reaction shows that former crypto miners are being judged as enterprise infrastructure providers. For IREN, power access is no longer enough. Reliability, disclosure and customer retention will determine whether its Canadian sites support or weaken the AI cloud thesis.