CoreWeave Raises 2026 Capex to $39 Billion as AI Cloud Backlog Hits $104 Billion
Nvidia-backed CoreWeave lifted its annual capital spending forecast on Tuesday after second-quarter revenue more than doubled, underscoring how relentless demand for AI computing infrastructure keeps redrawing the investment map for the so-called neocloud sector.
The Roseland, New Jersey-based company reported $2.58 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 112 percent from a year earlier and edging past Wall Street estimates of $2.56 billion, according to LSEG data. An adjusted loss of $1.03 per share came in narrower than the $1.20 loss analysts expected. Shares jumped 14 percent in extended trading.
CoreWeave's revenue backlog reached $104.2 billion at quarter end, up from $99.4 billion three months earlier. On top of that, the company said it has locked in more than $25 billion in net new customer commitments since July. The backlog now spans contracts through 2032, with more than half already in the delivery phase.
"We outperformed our plan across the board, with the operating advantage we have been building beginning to show up clearly in our results," chief executive Michael Intrator told analysts on a post-earnings call. With near-term capacity effectively sold out, Intrator said CoreWeave is securing compute agreements on "increasingly favourable terms."
The company raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance to $35 billion to $39 billion, from a prior range of $31 billion to $35 billion. It also lifted its 2026 revenue target to $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion, from $12 billion to $13 billion previously, and now expects adjusted operating income of $960 million to $1.15 billion. Capital spending in the June quarter alone hit $9.4 billion, up from $6.8 billion in the prior period.
Active power capacity reached 1.5 gigawatts at quarter end. CoreWeave targets more than 1.85 gigawatts by year end. The company carries roughly $35 billion in debt to fund its Nvidia GPU fleet.
A neocloud — a specialist provider that rents GPU-heavy infrastructure to other tech firms — CoreWeave has turned its early access to Nvidia chips into a client roster that includes Meta Platforms, Anthropic, Caterpillar, and quantitative trading firm Jane Street. Meta committed an additional $21 billion in April, layering atop a prior $14 billion agreement. Anthropic signed a multi-year deal for Claude model compute. Jane Street pledged $6 billion.
The company was added to the Nasdaq-100 index during the quarter and completed what it described as the first bring-up and validation of Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 chip system. Pricing for Blackwell and Vera Rubin SKUs is setting new highs, while prior-generation SKUs hold at or above levels from years ago, Intrator said. The company is passing component price increases through to customers, finance chief Nitin Agrawal noted.
Competition is emerging. SpaceX has begun selling excess computing capacity. Meta has weighed launching its own cloud business. Rival Nebius gained 5 percent in extended trading alongside CoreWeave. Yet demand, pricing, and margins are all expanding simultaneously, Agrawal said — a signal that the total addressable market remains massive.
Cloud Infrastructure Race Intensifies
The earnings underscore a broader shift: cloud capital intensity is no longer the exclusive domain of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Specialist GPU clouds are attracting multi-year, multi-billion-dollar commitments from the same hyperscalers and frontier AI labs. CoreWeave's $104 billion backlog — excluding the fresh $25 billion — offers revenue visibility that traditional cloud vendors rarely disclose at this granularity.
For enterprise buyers, the neocloud model promises faster access to scarce accelerators without the multi-year lead times of building proprietary data centres. For investors, the trade-off is debt: CoreWeave's $35 billion debt load and widening net losses ($626 million in Q2 versus $290 million a year earlier) reflect the cost of racing to install capacity ahead of demand.
Net interest expense reached $640 million in the quarter, more than double the $267 million recorded in the second quarter of 2025. The company has taken on substantial borrowing to fund infrastructure expansion, raising more than $10 billion in unsecured debt and convertible bonds during the quarter, along with a $3.1 billion term loan and a $1 billion strategic investment from Jane Street.
Technology and infrastructure expenses rose to $1.51 billion, up from $670 million a year earlier, as the company expanded its active power capacity by nearly 500 megawatts to reach 1.5 gigawatts. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $1.51 billion, with a margin of 59 percent, down from 62 percent a year ago. Adjusted operating income was $128 million, compared with analyst expectations of $66 million.
Power Grid Constraints Loom
The 1.5 gigawatt active footprint — targeting 1.85 gigawatts — places CoreWeave among the largest single-tenant power consumers in the U.S. Data centre buildouts are already outrunning grid interconnection queues in multiple regions, a pattern that has delayed projects by years. Cloud & Edge Computing coverage this week detailed how utility interconnection backlogs and transmission constraints are throttling AI infrastructure rollouts nationwide.
Utility executives and grid operators warn that the concentration of AI data centre loads in corridors like Northern Virginia, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest is testing transmission planning horizons. Interconnection queues in PJM, ERCOT, and CAISO now stretch beyond five years for large loads. CoreWeave's own expansion timeline depends on securing power purchase agreements and grid upgrades in parallel with server deployment — a sequencing risk that has caught other neoclouds off guard.
The International Energy Agency projects that global data centre electricity consumption could reach 945 terawatt-hours by 2026, roughly double the 2022 level. In the United States, campuses of 45 gigawatts or more are in various stages of planning, with Prince William County, Virginia, and Santa Clara, California, among the most constrained corridors. The gap between permitted capacity and available grid interconnection is widening each quarter.
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Regulatory Pushback Mounts
Regulatory headwinds exist. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order in July establishing a moratorium on new large-scale data centres. "There is no question that when parts of the U.S. become unwilling to even engage in those conversations, it becomes more challenging," Intrator said in an interview with CNBC. He added that none of CoreWeave's current guidance numbers are affected by the pushback so far.
Other states are watching. Virginia's Data Center Alley faces similar transmission bottlenecks. Texas, a magnet for crypto-mining pivots to AI, grapples with ERCOT grid reliability questions. The patchwork of state-level responses creates uncertainty for infrastructure planners who need decade-scale visibility.
Market Context
CoreWeave debuted on Nasdaq in March 2025. Year to date, its shares have risen 26 percent versus a 13 percent gain for the S&P 500. Analysts at Zacks Investment Research called the quarter "pivotal," noting that the contracted backlog guarantees rare multi-year revenue visibility. According to CNBC's report on the quarterly results, the company's capital spending forecast rose to as much as $39 billion for the year, reflecting confidence that AI demand will absorb every megawatt of capacity coming online.
The neocloud model has drawn comparisons to the early days of cloud computing, when Amazon Web Services turned excess retail infrastructure into a new business line. But the capital intensity is far higher: each megawatt of GPU capacity requires tens of millions in upfront server, networking, and cooling investment before a single dollar of revenue arrives. CoreWeave's ability to convert that capital intensity into a $104 billion backlog — with more than half already generating revenue — separates it from pure-play builders that have yet to secure long-term tenants.
The company's debt-to-equity profile will remain a focus for credit analysts as capex continues to outpace operating cash flow. Moody's and S&P Global Ratings have both placed CoreWeave on watch for potential upgrades, citing the contracted revenue visibility as a mitigant to balance-sheet concerns.
Outbound Source
CoreWeave's earnings release and conference call transcript are available via the company's investor relations site, and CNBC's report on the quarterly results provides additional detail on management commentary.
Keywords: CoreWeave, Nvidia, AI cloud, neocloud, data centre, capital expenditure, GPU, Meta Platforms, Anthropic Creator: Tech Desk