CoreWeave, the cloud-computing company that rents out Nvidia chips to AI developers, reported third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion late Tuesday, up 168% from $1.37 billion a year earlier and ahead of Wall Street's $3.54 billion consensus estimate. The results helped drive a broad rally in technology shares that lifted the Nasdaq Composite more than 1.6% on Wednesday, according to CNBC's market coverage.
CoreWeave, which went public in March 2025, leases data-center capacity stocked with Nvidia's most advanced chips to AI labs and large technology companies that don't want to build their own infrastructure. That model has made its results a closely watched proxy for AI infrastructure demand — and for whether the hundreds of billions of dollars committed to AI data centers this year are translating into paying customers rather than speculative capacity.
The company's revenue backlog — contracted business not yet recognized as revenue — climbed to roughly $132.5 billion, and adjusted EBITDA reached $2.26 billion, a 62% margin. CoreWeave raised its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion and lifted its adjusted operating income outlook by about 26% at the midpoint. Shares rose as much as 5.7% in the aftermath, part of a sector-wide bounce that also lifted rival cloud and chip suppliers.
Spending keeps climbing alongside the losses
The company's capital spending underscored how costly the AI buildout remains: CoreWeave spent $9.44 billion on property and equipment in the quarter against operating cash flow of just under $2 billion, and its GAAP net loss widened to $709 million as depreciation and financing costs on its data-center debt continued to grow. Adjusted loss per share came in at $1.27, narrower than the $1.55 Wall Street had modeled.
The results arrived at a delicate moment for the AI trade. Chip and cloud stocks sold off sharply in the final week of October and first week of November on fears that capital spending by Nvidia's customers was outrunning demonstrated returns — a worry compounded this week by Nvidia's own boardroom turmoil. CoreWeave's beat gave investors a reason to treat the sell-off as a pause rather than the start of a broader reassessment of AI infrastructure spending, though analysts say that verdict will be tested again when the company reports fourth-quarter results and updated 2027 capital-spending plans early next year.
