CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV) stock jumped in Wednesday's premarket session as investors focused on stronger AI compute pricing, higher revenue guidance and continued demand for large-scale AI infrastructure.
The company said it raised prices by about 25% across AI compute offerings in July to reflect strong demand and higher component costs, including more expensive GPUs.
Management also said demand for NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform remains "enormous," while contribution margins on new deals are rising by 5 to 10 percentage points.
CoreWeave lifted its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion and guided third-quarter revenue to $3.45 billion to $3.6 billion.
Backlog Signals Strong AI Demand
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said CoreWeave remains a key AI infrastructure vendor as backlog growth points to healthy demand.
Thill told CNBC that CoreWeave ended the quarter with about $99 billion in backlog and moved closer to $130 billion after signing additional business early in the current quarter.
He said that growth shows demand remains strong and that the broader AI trade remains intact as hyperscalers keep increasing capital spending.
Profitability Remains A Key Watch Point
Thill said CoreWeave remains one of the main vendors building infrastructure for the AI movement and works with major customers such as Meta Platforms Inc (META) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT) when they need outside support for large-scale cloud infrastructure.
He said CoreWeave benefits from a supply-constrained environment where customers continue to seek more capacity. However, he said investors still need more clarity on whether the company can become profitable and evolve over the next three years into a software-enabled cloud platform.
Thill said several metrics looked slightly above consensus, but he described the quarter as stable rather than a blowout. He also said CoreWeave must manage rising infrastructure costs, generate proper returns after financing costs and address concerns about insider selling.
Top ETF Exposure
- Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO): 7.22% Weight
- Tradr 2X Long CRWV Daily ETF (CWVX): 188.76% Weight
- Sofi Next 500 ETF (SFYX): 0.97% Weight
Significance: Because CRWV carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Price Action
CRWV Stock Price Activity: CoreWeave shares were trading higher by 17.36% at $106.00 during premarket trading on Wednesday, according to market data.
