Cloud-computing firm CoreWeave reported its fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue and a sales backlog of $104 billion, a reflection of the continued strength of demand for artificial-intelligence computing.
CoreWeave -- which buys advanced AI chips known as graphics processing units from Nvidia, installs them in data centers and leases them to companies such as Microsoft and OpenAI -- reported revenue of $2.58 billion for the quarter that ended in June. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected quarterly revenue of $2.55 billion.
Shares gained 12% in after-hours trading after closing at $90.32 on the Nasdaq. The company's stock price is up about 9% so far this year.
The company's sales backlog -- or future sales from recurring customers -- reached $104 billion, nearly doubling the order book it reported in November, signaling continuing strong demand for new AI infrastructure projects.
The pace of backlog growth has slowed notably from quarter to quarter, however. CoreWeave Chief Executive Michael Intrator called the period that ended in March "the strongest bookings quarter in CoreWeave's history" after the company reported a sales backlog of $99.4 billion, or 50% higher than the prior quarter's $66.8 billion.
But investors are less concerned these days by the level of demand than by capacity constraints, including construction delays, component shortages and other infrastructure challenges. Late last year, CoreWeave's share price declined by 46% in about six weeks as concerns mounted over an AI bubble and the company reported construction logjams at some of its data centers.
CoreWeave, which is 12.8% owned by Nvidia, according to FactSet, hasn't given guidance about when it expects to become profitable. But at the start of this year, after Nvidia invested another $2 billion in the company, the company said it expects to build enough new AI factories to reach 5 gigawatts' worth of total computing power deployed by 2030.
On Monday, Nvidia announced a massive AI financing initiative, in partnership with major firms including Apollo, Blackstone and BlackRock, which it said would give customers access to up to $500 billion in debt to lease its chips -- an arrangement that would benefit cloud companies like CoreWeave, which serve as middlemen between Nvidia and large AI labs.
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