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Merlin has completed the Critical Design Review for its C-130J autonomy program with @USSOCOM. CDR is the milestone where our government customer reviews the detailed design of the system and accepts it is mature enough to move toward the aircraft. We cleared it.
Learn more about what this milestone means in the press release. https://t.co/Gfkg4jDxqV
@bitcoinbutcher1 $SOFI will be huge with or without Clarity act. No one understands what @GalileoFintech owned by $SOFI is building with $SOFIUSD. Its the only National Charted bank with having stable coins which are FDIC Insured & FED Yield.
$IREN: Rapidly Rising Cost of BTM Gas Turbine
Gas turbines and associated pipeline and equipment are now 3m-4m/MW based off Wells Farm research from @ShanuMathew93! That's not even including the cost of natural gas. Without a major pipeline or source of natural gas nearby, liquified natural gas is needed which is 15 cents/kWH.
The market has rewarded $BE for producing MWs in the form of fuel cells which are good for 5 years and BE sells them in 10 year service contracts aka fuel cells as a service. Eventually IREN's MWs will be valued too. I mean why pay 4B/GW in BTM Gas Turbine equipment when you can get grid connected power at rates opex same or lower than generating from natural gas in many states?
Margin calculation wise, grid connected datacenter build is 10m/MW so BTM Gas Turbines is an increase of 30-40% on upfront capex which eats directly into profits.
Heavy Redundancy Factor
With a redundancy factor of 30-40% needed, many MWs of capacity can't even be used. Who cares if you have a 1.1 PUE datacenter if you are BTM Gas Turbines? The 1.1 PUE datacenter effectively became 1.1 * 1.4 = 1.54 PUE. And yes it's multiplicative because you need redundancy in the gas turbines for the AUX load like cooling too.
People will figure out this is much more important than the cost of electricity. BTM is a very expensive solution.
I never believed in the tokens/MW metric because really it should be tokens/(GPU+HBM) because cost of GPUs and HBM which is still the dominant factor here but BTM screws over any token/MW metric too once you factor in redundancy needed.
Why were Gas Turbines considered before $BE Fuel Cells and Smaller Engines like Reciprocal Engines?
Gas power plants last 25 years. In the case of NBIS's 2.6B for 328MW, BE Fuel Cells are 7.4m/MW for 10 years only. When normalized to 20 lifetime of datacenter, gas turbines are 2.8m/MW-20yrs while BE Fuel Cells are 14.4m/MW-20yrs!
Fuel Cells also have a redundancy factor 31% as NBIS is getting 250MW of usable power and 78MW of the fuel cells are for redundancy. That makes a 1.1 PUE datacenter effectively 1.1 * 1.31 = 1.44!
Smaller engines are in-between cost curve of Gas Turbines and Fuel Cells which is why NBIS attempted to use Bergen Cruise Ship Engines before they switch to $BE Fuel Cells.
Impact on IREN
Market doesn't reward IREN for hoarding GWs. When IREN converts the GWs to compute and the cost effectiveness of grid connected power over BTM Gas Turbines or Fuel Cells is apparent, IREN will be rewarded. Jane Street Algos and Wall Street Analyst rewards hard metrics like revenue, margins, and profit, not capacity to be built in the future like MWs.
IREN is seeing painful delays now on GPU deliveries which back up their entire datacenter bring up schedule. On the backend, however, having this huge power portfolio will allow IREN to build out the fastest unburdened by BTM buildout time on top of DC buildout time.
Thanks to @alanbialo for pointing out this post to me.
๐ @IREN_Ltd secures transmission agreement for 800 MW data center campus in South Australia ๐
โก 800 MW Bundey campus โ one of largest APAC AI infrastructure projects announced, positioned to serve regional demand
โก 4x 330kV feeder exits secured โ transmission connection into utility substation supports full capacity without network upgrades
โก 2028 energization target โ submarine fiber connectivity to Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan demand centers
โก South Australia 100% renewable grid โ by 2027, campus powered entirely by clean energy in fastest-growing AI region
โก 200+ permanent jobs plus 500+ construction โ significant economic lift for regional communities in technology-first jurisdiction
$IREN plants first major APAC flag with transmission-secured, fiber-connected gigafactory anchoring Asia-Pacific AI expansion.