Iren jumps on a report that Anthropic is its mystery AI customer, and CCC rises on buyout talks

Two reports published over the weekend are moving two very different stocks before Monday's open. One is about the race to build computing capacity for artificial intelligence. The other is about private equity's appetite for software companies.

Iren: a name for the 'frontier AI lab'

Shares of Iren, a data center operator that began as a bitcoin miner, rose about 8% in overnight trading late Sunday and were up about 5% in Monday's premarket session. The trigger was a report from The Information on the economics of Anthropic's data center leases.

Within that analysis, The Information wrote: "People familiar with the relationship say Anthropic also has an unannounced multiyear cloud deal with IREN." The report did not disclose the dollar value or the length of the agreement. Neither Anthropic nor Iren has commented on it.

The report landed on a question investors had been asking for weeks. When Iren reported fiscal fourth-quarter results in August, Chief Executive Daniel Roberts listed a run of new multiyear cloud contracts, including Cohere, Perplexity and Figure AI, and "separately, a leading frontier AI lab whose name we're not able to disclose just yet." Monday's move reflects the market treating Anthropic as the likely answer, even though it remains unconfirmed.

Why former bitcoin miners matter to AI labs

The broader point of The Information's analysis is how hard AI developers are pushing to bring new capacity online. According to the report, Anthropic is racing to switch on roughly $530 billion of data center leases, and it is leaning on its partners to speed up construction because every month of delay means revenue it cannot book.

That push increasingly runs through companies that started life mining bitcoin. The report named Hut 8, TeraWulf, Iren and Nscale among the operators Anthropic depends on. Miners already have what AI labs need most: large grid connections, land and experience running power-hungry facilities. Converting those sites to host AI chips has become one of the more closely watched themes in the market this year.

For Iren, a confirmed contract with one of the largest AI labs would add a marquee name to its customer list. For now, investors are trading on a report, not an announcement, and the terms that would determine what the deal is worth are unknown.

The context: a stock that had been sliding

Monday's gain comes after a difficult stretch. Iren closed Friday at $35.19, down 1.46% on the day, and well below the roughly $48.55 close it reached within the past month. Shares of AI infrastructure providers have swung sharply this autumn as investors weigh enormous spending plans against questions about how quickly AI revenue will arrive, including last Thursday's report on OpenAI's revenue that hit chip stocks.

CCC: private equity circles an auto-insurance software company

CCC Intelligent Solutions, a Chicago-based company whose software connects auto insurers, repair shops and parts suppliers, rose about 10% in premarket trading. It had already gained about 11% in extended trading on Friday.

Bloomberg News reported on Friday that private equity firm GTCR and activist investor Elliott Investment Management are in advanced talks to acquire CCC. Reuters confirmed the talks through its own source, who said a deal could be announced as soon as this week but that no final agreement had been reached. Financial terms have not been reported. Elliott declined to comment, and CCC and GTCR did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The talks are the latest step in a sale process that has been running for months. Reuters reported in July that CCC was exploring a sale and had hired Morgan Stanley to advise it, reaching out to potential buyers including private equity firms. In August, Bloomberg reported that Copart, the online vehicle auctioneer, was in talks to buy the company.

What the two moves have in common

Both stocks are moving on reporting rather than on company announcements, which makes them vulnerable to whatever the companies eventually confirm or deny. In Iren's case, the open questions are the size and length of the contract. In CCC's case, the open questions are the price and whether a deal is signed at all.

Both also sit inside larger trends. AI developers are signing long-term capacity deals with a widening circle of infrastructure providers, and private equity firms with capital to deploy keep returning to software companies with recurring revenue. Monday's premarket moves show how quickly a single report can be priced in.

What to watch

For Iren, any statement from the company or from Anthropic. For CCC, whether the deal announcement Reuters' source anticipated arrives this week, and at what price. Both stocks trade in a market that will also be digesting bank earnings from Tuesday and September inflation data on Wednesday.