New York, May 26, 2026, 08:04 EDT
CoreWeave is drawing fresh support on Wall Street after GF Securities started coverage with a “Buy,” but the bigger trade is no longer just one stock. Investors are now measuring the Nvidia-backed AI cloud company against Nebius, a fast-growing rival that is turning big customer contracts into power, data centers and debt-funded capacity.
The shift matters because the AI infrastructure trade is moving beyond chipmakers. CoreWeave and Nebius are “neoclouds” — specialist cloud firms that rent access to AI chips, servers and related software — and both are trying to prove that demand from Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and other large buyers can justify tens of billions of dollars in spending.
CoreWeave was quoted at $105.49 and Nebius at $214.77 before the U.S. market opened on Tuesday, according to market data. Nvidia, the main supplier and investor behind much of the AI compute build-out, was quoted at $215.33.
GF Securities cited long-term demand, CoreWeave’s ties to major hyperscale cloud and internet companies, and a path to profitability by 2028, Barchart reported in an article syndicated by Yahoo Finance. The firm said CoreWeave was “positioned as a long-term winner” because of early GPU deployment, an AI-only focus and large long-term agreements. Barchart.com
That is not the only view. D.A. Davidson began coverage of both CoreWeave and Nebius at Neutral last week, with analyst Gil Luria saying the firm saw “a good time to be balanced,” according to Seeking Alpha. A separate report said Luria pointed to CoreWeave’s thin-margin risk, debt-heavy financing and insider selling, while Nebius had already rallied enough to limit near-term upside. Seeking Alpha
CoreWeave’s numbers explain the renewed interest. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $2.08 billion, up from $982 million a year earlier, and said revenue backlog — contracted future revenue, subject to delivery — reached $99.4 billion. Chief Executive Michael Intrator called it the company’s “strongest bookings quarter” and said CoreWeave had passed 1 gigawatt of active power. CoreWeave
The company has also been able to keep funding the build-out. CoreWeave said on May 18 it closed a $3.1 billion delayed-draw term loan backed by high-performance computing infrastructure, with proceeds tied to two customer contracts. Co-founder Brannin McBee said the transaction validated infrastructure-backed financing as “a scalable new asset class,” and the company said it had secured more than $20 billion of debt and equity capital so far this year. CoreWeave
Nebius remains smaller by quarterly revenue, but it is catching attention for its pace. The Amsterdam-based company reported first-quarter revenue of $399 million, up 684% from a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA of $129.5 million. Reuters reported this month that Nebius had lifted its 2026 capital spending forecast to $20 billion to $25 billion as it expands capacity for AI cloud demand.
The contest is tied closely to Meta. Reuters reported in March that Nebius signed AI infrastructure deals with Meta worth up to $27 billion over five years, while CoreWeave has disclosed multiple new agreements with Meta, including a $21 billion commitment signed in March. Microsoft is also central to the Nebius story through an earlier $17.4 billion deal, Reuters reported.
Power is the hard part. Nebius said on May 20 it would use Bloom Energy fuel cells to help power its AI infrastructure build-out, with 328 megawatts of installed capacity expected to be operational this year. “Power remains a key constraint,” said Andrey Korolenko, Nebius’s chief product and infrastructure officer. Nebius
Nebius is also putting steel in the ground. The company broke ground this month on a gigawatt-scale AI factory campus in Independence, Missouri, its first such U.S. digital infrastructure project, saying the site spans about 400 acres and is expected to support about 1,200 construction jobs and 130 permanent positions at full operation.
The risk is that the financing cycle gets ahead of the cash flow. CoreWeave reported a $740 million first-quarter net loss and $536 million of net interest expense, while Nebius warned that future results depend on securing financing, power, equipment and customers in a competitive market. A slowdown in AI demand, higher borrowing costs or delays in bringing power online would hit the model fast.
For now, investors are paying for capacity, customer commitments and access to capital. CoreWeave has the bigger backlog. Nebius has the faster revenue growth. The next test is duller but more important: whether either company can turn signed demand into enough operating profit before the debt bill, power constraints and larger cloud rivals close in.
