CoreWeave, the AI cloud company at the centre of Wall Street's AI-bubble fears, just posted 168% revenue growth, raised its forecasts and promised profits by early 2028. Investors, who had wiped out about 40% of its value in a month, sent the stock sharply higher.
CoreWeave reported third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion on Tuesday, November 10, up from $1.37 billion a year earlier and ahead of analyst estimates of $3.55 billion. It also raised its full-year outlook and said it expects to become profitable on an adjusted basis in the first half of 2028, according to Reuters. The Nvidia-backed company's shares jumped more than 13% in US premarket trading on Wednesday, and its results helped lift stock futures and markets across Asia and Europe.
The Quarter in Numbers
Revenue rose by more than $1 billion from the previous quarter alone, CoreWeave said in its earnings release. Operating income was $207 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached $2.26 billion, a 62% margin. Adjusted operating income was $379 million, a margin CEO Michael Intrator said reached double digits "a quarter ahead of plan."
The bottom line is still deep in the red. CoreWeave lost $709 million, or $1.27 a share, compared with a $110 million loss a year earlier. The main reason is borrowing costs: net interest expense was $846 million in the quarter, up from $310 million. On an adjusted basis, the loss was 95 cents a share, better than the $1.16 analysts expected, CNBC reports, citing LSEG data.
Demand indicators were strong. The revenue backlog, which covers committed customer contracts, climbed to about $132.5 billion at the end of September from $104 billion in June. CoreWeave added more than 200 megawatts of active power to reach over 1.7 gigawatts, and its total contracted power rose to more than 4.6 gigawatts. Its international footprint now exceeds 1.3 gigawatts of contracted power, including sites in India, Indonesia and Spain.
Raised Guidance
CoreWeave lifted its 2026 revenue forecast to $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion, from $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion in August. It raised its adjusted operating income outlook to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, about 26% higher at the midpoint than before and above the $1.07 billion analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expected. The company now expects to exit 2026 at an annualised revenue run rate of $20 billion to $21 billion.
Spending remains huge. Full-year capital expenditure is now forecast at $37 billion to $39 billion, with the low end raised by $2 billion because the company expects to deliver infrastructure to customers sooner. CoreWeave also guided for fourth-quarter interest expense of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.
The Debt Question
Debt is why investors have been so nervous. CoreWeave had about $46.9 billion in total debt at the end of September, Reuters reports. CNBC says rising interest rates have pushed some lenders out of the market and that some of the company's bond yields recently topped 16%. The stock had fallen more than 40% in the past month as investors rotated out of AI infrastructure names.
Management tried to address those fears directly. Finance chief Nitin Agrawal told analysts that "at current yields, we do not intend to issue additional parent-level unsecured debt through 2027," and projected less than $5 billion in parent-level debt financing over that period. Intrator said most of the capital needed for 2027 will come from customer prepayments and financing from hardware partners. The company expects about $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits over the next three months.
"Customer contracts come first, and investment follows," Intrator said in a statement quoted by Reuters. On the earnings call, he added that CoreWeave "could sell all of the capacity that we have to current buyers that are in the queue," but is choosing to wait until infrastructure is further along for better returns.
Politics and Data Centres
The results also came days after US midterm elections in which voters rejected dozens of data-centre initiatives. Intrator told Reuters he expects "a lot more scrutiny" of how data centres are built and a possible "pacing issue," but no material change to costs or building plans. He also said CoreWeave would not speed up international expansion because of the election.
Why It Matters
CoreWeave has become a stand-in for the wider AI trade, so its numbers mattered well beyond its own shares. Reuters reported that Nasdaq 100 futures rose about 1.9% on Wednesday morning, while Nvidia gained 5.2% in premarket trading after losing about $430 billion in market value over the previous two sessions amid the controversy around CEO Jensen Huang.
Not everyone is convinced. "The business can execute well and still face a tougher financing environment," Joe Tigay, portfolio manager at Equity Armor Investments, told CNBC. Our view: the results show that demand for AI computing is real, but CoreWeave's path to profit still depends on interest rates. After hotter-than-expected US inflation data, traders now see a Federal Reserve rate hike in December as almost certain.
What to watch next: rival neocloud Nebius reports on Thursday, and CoreWeave customer Anthropic is set to debut on the Nasdaq next week, a listing that will test investors' appetite for AI once again.