CoreWeave Posts $3.7 Billion Quarter, Lifts 2026 Outlook

CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) reported third-quarter revenue of $3.7 billion, up 168% from a year earlier, and raised its full-year outlook on rising demand and pricing for artificial intelligence computing capacity. The net loss, however, widened to $709 million from $110 million, because interest expense climbed to $846 million from $310 million. Growth, at this scale, arrives with a bill attached.

Revenue rose by more than $1 billion from the second quarter and exceeded the high end of guidance. Adjusted operating income (operating profit excluding non-cash and one-off items) came in at $379 million, well above the forecast range of $200 million to $260 million. Adjusted operating margin doubled to 10%, from 5% in the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) rose 169% year over year to $2.3 billion, and operating cash flow reached $2 billion.

How is CoreWeave funding its expansion?

Chief Executive Officer Mike Intrator said CoreWeave does not intend to use unsecured debt to fund the business at current yields. Instead, the company plans to rely on asset-level lending, customer prepayments and operating cash flow.

Chief Financial Officer Nitin Agrawal said the company expects to raise less than $5 billion in incremental parent-level capital through 2027. CoreWeave spent $14.5 billion on capital expenditures in the quarter, above guidance, after pulling some deliveries forward from the fourth quarter. It ended September with $6.5 billion in cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities, plus nearly $5 billion of undrawn capacity under committed delayed-draw term loan facilities (credit lines drawn only when needed).

Agrawal said the next delayed-draw term loan should launch in the coming weeks. Based on early discussions, CoreWeave expects a yield of 7% to 7.5% at current benchmark rates, with the facility financing more than 90% of the associated capital expenditure. Intrator added that the company expects to collect approximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits over the next three months, including more than $3 billion tied to re-contracting existing infrastructure. CoreWeave has collected prepayments on 70% of its deals this year.

What is driving the pricing power?

Intrator said CoreWeave raised prices across its product offerings by approximately 25% in July and another 10% later in the third quarter, with pricing continuing to rise in the fourth quarter. The company is allocating more capacity to short-term opportunities, where it sells at more than $40 million per megawatt annually. Pricing for new infrastructure on four- and five-year contracts is moving to $20 million to $25 million per megawatt.

Revenue backlog reached approximately $133 billion, up 138% year over year. Agrawal said more than half is attached to contracts with customer delivery expected to begin by the end of 2026. Intrator told analysts that CoreWeave is largely sold out through 2027 but not through 2028, and that qualified demand runs roughly 10 times available capacity through the end of 2027.

The renewal pipeline adds another layer. More than 130,000 graphics processing units, or GPUs, come off contract in 2027, followed by approximately 170,000 in 2028. At current prices, Intrator said, 2027 renewals could generate approaching $4 billion in incremental annualized revenue, rising to nearly $10 billion including 2028 renewals, without additional capital spending. Agrawal noted this opportunity sits outside the current backlog.

What does the outlook look like?

CoreWeave raised its 2026 revenue guidance to $13 billion to $13.3 billion and its adjusted operating income guidance to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion. It expects capital expenditures of $37 billion to $39 billion, lifting the low end of its prior range, and forecast a year-end annualized revenue run rate of $20 billion to $21 billion.

The company expects its adjusted net loss to narrow meaningfully in 2027 and to turn to adjusted net income in the first half of 2028 and for the full year. For the fourth quarter of 2026, it expects interest expense of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion. Agrawal said contracted cash flow from existing commitments should be sufficient to service and repay current debt plus additional debt expected to deliver those contracts, before counting renewals. If CoreWeave focused only on its committed backlog, 2027 capital spending would remain in line with 2026 while revenue and EBITDA grew significantly, he added.

On capacity, CoreWeave ended the quarter with more than 1.7 gigawatts of active power and maintained its expectation of more than 1.85 gigawatts by year-end. Asked about regulatory pressures, Intrator said the company did not anticipate an impact on data centers intended to host its backlog. In Texas, the overwhelming majority of its power is already online or fully permitted and under construction, he said.

CoreWeave, founded in 2017 as a cryptocurrency mining business and now headquartered in Livingston, New Jersey, operates data center infrastructure in the United States and Europe. The arithmetic is straightforward: $133 billion of backlog against $709 million of quarterly loss. The bridge between the two is interest expense, and management has staked its credibility on crossing it by 2028.