CoreWeave surpassed Wall Street’s quarterly revenue expectations on Tuesday, driven by soaring demand for its cloud services amid the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence tools. However, a larger-than-anticipated net loss triggered a 10% drop in shares during after-hours trading.
The company operates 33 AI data centers across the U.S. and Europe, offering access to Nvidia chips, which remain highly sought after by enterprises to train and run large AI models in an increasingly competitive market.
For the second quarter, CoreWeave reported revenue of $1.21 billion, exceeding the $1.08 billion estimate. Its revenue backlog reached $30.1 billion as of June 30, up from $25.9 billion on March 31.
“Demand is humming, but it is the cost of growth that tempered the stock down in aftermarket trading,” said Michael Ashley Schulman of Running Point Capital Advisors.
Operating expenses rose sharply to $1.19 billion in Q2, compared with $317.7 million a year earlier. The net loss stood at $290.5 million, far above analysts’ expectations of $190.6 million, according to LSEG data.
“We are scaling rapidly as we look to meet the unprecedented demand for AI,” CEO Michael Intrator said. “There’s a lot of different pieces that are constrained, but ultimately the piece that is the most significant challenge right now is accessing power shells that are capable of delivering the scale of infrastructure that our clients are requiring.”
CoreWeave reaffirmed the advantages of its $9 billion all-stock acquisition of crypto miner Core Scientific, a move set to secure the firm’s entire 1.3 GW power capacity under contract and its future pipeline. This comes despite opposition from Two Seas Capital, Core Scientific’s largest shareholder, which announced last week it would vote against the sale.
Investor attention has also centered on CoreWeave’s dependence on a few major clients. The company recently expanded contracts with hyperscalers to accommodate both their internal and external AI demand.
“The backlog surge to $30B+ suggests demand visibility well beyond 2025, but the concentration in mega-customers like OpenAI means those relationships remain both the crown jewel and the single point of failure,” said eMarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman.
CoreWeave has witnessed rising interest in AI inference, particularly for models employing chain-of-thought reasoning, which solves problems through logical sequences — a method emphasized by advanced AI labs such as OpenAI.
“The actual quality of the intelligence was improved so much by the chain-of-reasoning models, but it also requires an incredible increase in the amount of computing to be able to drive that level of accuracy,” Intrator said in an interview.
The Livingston, New Jersey-based firm increased its annual revenue forecast to $5.15–$5.35 billion, up from the prior $4.9–$5.1 billion projection. Shares were trading at $133.71 after hours, with the stock having nearly tripled since its March IPO. The company also maintained its annual capital expenditure outlook.
