Shares of Iren rose after the neocloud narrowed its loss and reported higher revenue in the fiscal first quarter, driven by strong demand for artificial-intelligence cloud capacity that has increased pricing power.

Shares climbed 19% at $21.42 in Friday afternoon trading. The stock has fallen from its May peak as investors increasingly scrutinize the financial sustainability of the AI infrastructure buildout. Shares have fallen 43% year-to-date.

The company on Thursday reported a fiscal first-quarter loss of $263 million, compared with a loss of $684 million in the previous fourth quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting a loss of $254.4 million.

Revenue rose 66% from the previous quarter to $228 million, beating analyst expectations for $217.9 million.

Of that total, AI cloud services revenue contributed $135 million, while AI cloud lease revenue rose to $65 million.

The company said its pricing power continues to grow. Iren estimated that contracted pricing on three-year deals rose 11% since the previous quarter, with pricing for five-year deals up 12%.

"We own the land, the power and the data centers under all of it, which gives us more ways to fund growth and lets us set its pace," co-Chief Executive Officer Daniel Roberts said.

Iren had been targeting more than $4 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year. The company said Thursday that the target is fully contracted and funded, but that supplier timing and a change requested by a customer have pushed back the target to January, with the possibility of a further extension to February.

The company ended the quarter with a revenue backlog of $20.3 billion, up 22% quarter-over-quarter.