CoreWeave, Inc. reported a 112% year-over-year revenue surge in the latest quarter, driven by accelerating demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company's net loss widened to $626 million from $290 million in the same period last year, resulting in a loss of $0.60 per share.

The company's revenue backlog now stands at $104 billion, a figure that excludes over $25 billion in new customer purchase commitments added in the third quarter. Current effective operating power capacity has reached 1.5 gigawatts.

CoreWeave surged 14% in after-hours trading.

Where to focus

Management expects third-quarter revenue to range between $3.4 billion and $3.6 billion, with the midpoint of that range implying a 158% year-over-year increase. This aligns closely with the analyst consensus estimate of $3.43 billion from Refinitiv.

For the full year 2026, CoreWeave, Inc. now forecasts revenue of $124 billion to $132 billion, with adjusted operating profit between $960 million and $1.15 billion. This compares to the earlier May forecast of $120 billion to $130 billion in revenue and $900 million to $1.1 billion in adjusted operating profit. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had previously expected $126.3 billion in full-year revenue.

Capital spending and capacity expansion

The company projects year-end effective operating power capacity will exceed 1.85 gigawatts, with annual capital expenditures of $35 billion to $39 billion. This capital spending range is up from the previous forecast of $31 billion to $35 billion announced in May.

The eight-year-old company is racing against major cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to build data centers packed with chips capable of running generative AI models. Unlike these tech giants, CoreWeave, Inc. has not yet achieved profitability.

Public opposition to new data centers is growing across the United States. In July, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order pausing approvals for new large-scale data center projects.

Management's outlook

CEO Michael Intrator said during an analyst call, "When we present our forecasts, we base them on our current operating conditions and the guidance we've provided. So far, regulatory hurdles do not affect any of these projections."

At the end of the quarter, the company's balance sheet showed $35 billion in liabilities, primarily used to purchase Nvidia GPUs and other hardware.

Intrator noted strong demand for Nvidia compute chip leasing. "Our Blackwell and Vera Rubin product lines are seeing record pricing and gross margins, while pricing for previous-generation products remains at or above levels from several years ago."

CFO Nitin Agrawal said the company is passing rising hardware costs on to its customers.

New contracts and competitive landscape

During the quarter, Meta added $21 billion in compute procurement orders. CoreWeave, Inc. also announced a multi-year agreement with Anthropic and secured a $6 billion commitment from quantitative trading firm Jane Street.

Competition continues to intensify. SpaceX has begun selling its excess computing capacity, and Meta is considering launching a cloud business. Rival Nebius rose 5% in after-hours trading.

Agrawal stated, "Even as competition increases, our demand, pricing, and gross margins are all rising simultaneously. This shows that CoreWeave's product competitiveness is improving, and the overall addressable market in our sector is very large, giving us plenty of room to grow."

As of Tuesday's close, CoreWeave, Inc. shares have gained 26% year-to-date, compared to the S&P 500's nearly 13% rise. The company listed on the Nasdaq in March 2025.