CoreWeave Raises 2026 Forecast as Revenue Jumps 168% and Backlog Hits $132.5 Billion

The GPU cloud provider now expects 2026 revenue of $13 billion to $13.3 billion and adjusted operating income of $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, according to its earnings release. In August it had guided to $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion in revenue and $960 million to $1.15 billion in adjusted operating income. Quarterly revenue beat the $3.55 billion analysts had expected, according to LSEG consensus figures cited by CNBC, and the shares rose slightly in extended trading.

The results carry weight beyond CoreWeave because the company has become a test case for the debt-funded side of the AI buildout. Its stock has lost more than 40% over the past month as investors pulled back from infrastructure names and rising interest rates made lenders more cautious, and some CoreWeave bond yields recently topped 16%, CNBC reported. Shares of Nebius, a fellow neocloud that has fallen by a similar amount and reports on Thursday, got a small lift from the numbers.

"This was a breakout quarter for CoreWeave, with revenue increasing by more than $1 billion sequentially," co-founder, chairman and chief executive Michael Intrator said in the release.

The Debt Behind the Growth

Profitability moved the other way. CoreWeave's net loss widened to $709 million, or $1.27 a share, from $110 million a year earlier. Adjusted operating income rose to $379 million, but the margin on that measure narrowed to 10% from 16%. Adjusted EBITDA was $2.26 billion, a 62% margin.

The company's balance sheet shows $46.9 billion of recourse and non-recourse debt at September 30, against $4.1 billion of cash and cash equivalents. During the quarter it raised about $4.2 billion through upsized convertible notes, set up an at-the-market programme to sell up to 35 million Class A shares, and closed a $2.6 billion delayed-draw term loan facility aimed at shorter customer contracts. It expects fourth-quarter interest expense of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.

Spending is still climbing. CoreWeave put $9.44 billion into property and equipment in the quarter and now plans $37 billion to $39 billion of capital expenditure for the full year, raising the bottom of that range from $35 billion. CNBC said the midpoint implies growth of 155%.

Backlog and Power

Revenue backlog reached about $132.5 billion at the end of September, up from $104 billion at the end of June. The company said it expanded work with existing customers including OpenAI, Perplexity, Jane Street, Cohere, Hippocratic AI and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and added Canva, Substack and Wayve as new clients. It also signed a collaboration with Leidos on secure AI cloud services for defence and intelligence work.

Anthropic, which CNBC describes as a key CoreWeave customer, is preparing to list on the Nasdaq next week at a fully diluted valuation of up to about $1.4 trillion.

Active power rose by more than 200 megawatts in the quarter to over 1.7 gigawatts, and contracted power grew by more than 900 megawatts to over 4.6 gigawatts, according to the release. International contracted power passed 1.3 gigawatts across India, Indonesia and Spain. CoreWeave reaffirmed that it expects more than 1.85 gigawatts of active power by the end of the year.

Like its peers, CoreWeave depends heavily on Nvidia for chips and, in parts of the ecosystem, for capital. Nvidia's shares have fallen sharply this week as its board investigates chief executive Jensen Huang, and US voters last week rejected dozens of local data centre initiatives, CNBC noted.

The company's guidance points to an annualised revenue run rate of $20 billion to $21 billion as it exits 2026.