IREN Mackenzie Site

Mackenzie shows both the appeal and the expense of converting an established mining campus into an AI platform. IREN already controls a large electrical connection in northern British Columbia. The next deployment still requires hardware, suitable buildings, networking and a financing structure that can support the equipment before customer payments arrive.

The campus has 80 MW of electrical capacity. Its current relevance is no longer explained adequately by an old mining hashrate or a company-wide GPU target. The important changes are the financed air-cooled expansion and the additional liquid-cooled deployment planned for 2027.

Explore the wider IREN infrastructure overview or open the IREN Data Center Tracker for the location-by-location view.

What the existing campus provides

IREN's facility page describes an 11-acre freehold site, an owned substation, a direct BC Hydro connection and two physically diverse fiber paths. Its published 80 MW figure is the site's power capacity. It must not be relabelled as 80 MW of critical IT load and then increased again for cooling overhead. Mackenzie facility specifications.

That distinction changes how the site should be compared with a new development. The grid connection is already part of an established industrial property, while the equipment configuration can change. The asset is not starting from bare land, but neither is a replacement GPU cluster automatically ready because mining previously operated there. A different workload can require a different electrical layout, cooling system and network fabric.

Power usage effectiveness, or PUE, is total facility energy divided by IT energy. It is a ratio with a specific denominator. Any calculation must start by establishing whether the capacity being quoted is facility power or IT load. The older illustration retained below used a different starting assumption; it is not a current measurement of Mackenzie.

Financing the air-cooled expansion

In its August 27 results, IREN identified $2.4 billion of financing at a 9.0% fixed rate for Mackenzie's air-cooled expansion, covering 90% of the associated GPU capital expenditure. The amount and coverage relate to that equipment financing. They do not mean that every cost of the property, construction programme or future liquid-cooled deployment is funded on identical terms. IREN FY26 results.

This is a more useful description than treating AI conversion as a simple exchange of machines. Financing connects a specific equipment investment to future customer economics. Construction, power and service obligations remain alongside it. For a reader evaluating readiness, the financing announcement is evidence that one dependency has advanced; it is not a substitute for installation, commissioning or customer acceptance.

Liquid cooling is a separate next step

The same results release placed additional liquid-cooled deployments at Mackenzie and the other Canadian campuses in 2027. That schedule remains management's plan. It should not be combined with the air-cooled financing into a claim that all future phases are already delivered.

Air and liquid cooling describe different ways of removing heat from equipment. Neither label establishes a GPU count, utilization rate or revenue figure. A customer-ready cluster also needs the appropriate servers, networking, software and support. The conversion is best followed deployment by deployment, with the delivery stage attached to each figure.

Read the regional figures at their proper scope

Mackenzie belongs beside Canal Flats and Prince George in IREN's Canadian network. Earlier research discussed GPU and annualized revenue targets for that wider group. Those figures cannot be presented as Mackenzie's standalone operating result.

Annualized run-rate revenue is also different from revenue recognized during a reporting period. A contracted deployment can have a quoted annualized value before all the associated equipment is commissioned and accepted. Readers need the date, the geographic scope and the delivery condition before comparing such figures.

What matters next

The evidence to follow is the progress of the financed deployment into service and the physical work supporting the later liquid-cooled expansion. Site-specific equipment, customer acceptance and remaining power headroom would make the picture more precise. In their absence, a confident site revenue estimate would add precision that the disclosure does not provide.

The IREN company page connects this infrastructure study with the wider research and separately dated forecasts. Current factual coverage was reviewed through September 17, 2026. The limited historical calculations retained below remain dated illustrations, with their original assumptions visible.

Historical calculations retained from the original study

The following limited examples are preserved from the original publication. Their assumptions and outputs have not been revised. They are not current operating measurements, a new Northwise forecast or a statement of current contracted prices. The factual discussion above uses the latest reviewed evidence.

In particular, the older PUE table starts with an assumed 80 MW IT load. The campus is reported as 80 MW of electrical capacity, so that table must not be used to claim an 88 MW Mackenzie facility. The older energy-price illustration is also not a verified current tariff.

The regional power cost for IREN’s British Columbia operations is approximately $0.045 per kWh. In the context of high-density compute, energy cost forms the dominant variable in operating expenditure. At full 80MW utilization, annualized energy consumption can be approximated as follows:

80MW × 24 hours × 365 days = 700,800 MWh per year
700,800 MWh × $0.045/kWh = approximately $31.5 million in annual energy cost

The following table records the earlier British Columbia planning figures discussed in this analysis. It is retained as historical context, not a current deployment count, a Mackenzie revenue forecast or a report of revenue already recognized. Newer company disclosures distinguish operating activity from contracted future deployments.