CoreWeave Shares Dip Despite $4B OpenAI Deal as Investor Concerns Over Spending Linger

CoreWeave (CRWV.O) shares fell 2.5% on Thursday despite announcing a major $4 billion expansion deal with OpenAI, as investor concerns persisted over the company’s aggressive spending plans relative to its projected revenue.

The Nvidia-backed cloud computing firm said during its first post-IPO earnings call on Wednesday that it plans to spend nearly four times its expected 2025 revenue, triggering skepticism despite strong top-line partnerships.

Key Deal Highlights:

• OpenAI, a major CoreWeave client, will pay the company through April 2029, as per a newly disclosed regulatory filing.

• This is in addition to their existing $11.9 billion, five-year cloud services contract, which includes equity ownership by OpenAI in CoreWeave.

• CoreWeave also confirmed that it signed a new hyperscaler client, but declined to identify the company.

Market Reaction and Analyst Views:

• Stock Performance: Despite the dip, CoreWeave shares remain up over 64% since their March IPO.

• Analyst Reactions:

  • Morgan Stanley and MoffettNathanson speculate the unnamed new hyperscaler is Alphabet (Google), citing earlier reports that Google was exploring renting Nvidia chips from CoreWeave.

  • However, Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson & Co warned that hyperscalers are temporary clients, likely to exit once their own infrastructure catches up.

“They will likely go away once they have built out enough of their own data centers,” Luria said.

Context: AI Boom Meets Investor Caution

CoreWeave is part of a growing class of infrastructure providers fueling the AI boom by offering GPU-as-a-service platforms to leading AI developers. Yet, the AI investment wave is entering a more scrutinized phase, as cheaper models from firms like DeepSeek raise questions about sustainability and margins.

Despite robust demand and high-profile partnerships, CoreWeave’s heavy capital expenditures — far outpacing revenue — remain a red flag for value-focused investors, especially as competitors build out in-house capabilities.

Still, at least seven brokerages have raised their price targets for CoreWeave stock to between $50 and $80, showing continued optimism about the company’s long-term role in AI infrastructure.