Iris Energy To Double Hash Volume By 2024 With $22M Bitmain T21 Miner

Renewable Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Iris Energy is set to increase its total hash rate by 10 exahashes per second (EH/s) by 2024 with the acquisition of new Bitmain T21 mining rigs.

In the year Bitmain has announced that it has acquired an additional 1.6 EH/s T21 miners, which are set to be delivered in the second quarter of 2024. The company currently has an operating capacity of 5.6 EH/s through December 2023.

The new generation of Chinese manufacturer Bitmain mining hardware improves the efficiency of Iris operations from 29.5 joules per terahash (J/TH) to 24.8 J/TH. Iris has invested $22.3 million in its latest order from Bitmain, with a hardware price of $14 per terabyte.

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Iris expects Bitmain's S21 miners to generate 1.4EH/s of mining output in the first quarter, leveraging the previous order. It is also waiting for different Bitmain T21 miners, increasing its capacity by 1.3 EH/s.

Iris announced an 80-megawatt (MW) expansion in June 2023 at its Childress data center in Texas. The company has indicated that additional processing capacity will be available from January 2024, which will allow the working hash rate to increase to 10 EH/. When receiving new hardware from Bitmain.

The company plans to build an additional 100 MW of data centers at the site.

While Iris is primarily focused on Bitcoin mining, it has expanded its data center to serve the growing demand for artificial intelligence computing. Iris invested $10 million in August to buy 248 state-of-the-art Nvidia H100 GPUs, which are due to arrive by the end of 2023.

The company currently operates data center facilities at various sites in North America, including Canal Flats, Mackenzie, Prince George in British Columbia, Canada and the Childress site in Texas.

Iris says four of its operations use 100% renewable energy, saying its data centers generate power from wind, solar and hydroelectric power. A disclaimer on its website states that 98 percent of the power at its three Canadian sites comes from renewables. The rest of the energy use is offset by purchasing renewable energy certificates.

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