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If you’re getting dizzy watching CoreWeave’s balancing act, you’re not alone. The AI cloud startup reported first-quarter numbers Thursday evening showing that its business is ramping up quickly—revenue doubled in the quarter to $2 billion compared to the year-earlier period—but its investment spending and operating expenses are also taking off. It’s no wonder CoreWeave is synonymous with the high-stakes gamble that underpins so much of the AI revolution.
Here’s some earnings porn to ponder. CoreWeave’s capital expenditures—the money it is spending building its network of data centers—rocketed to $7.7 billion in the quarter from $1.4 billion a year earlier. As a result, it burned $4.7 billion in cash in the quarter—two-thirds of its cash burn for all of 2025! The full-year 2026 figures are likely to be even more eye-popping. CoreWeave is now projecting between $12 billion and $13 billion in revenue for 2026, but as much as $35 billion in capex.
For all the chatter about big tech’s huge capex bills, companies like Alphabet and Amazon are typically spending about half or a third of their revenue on capex. CoreWeave is spending three times its revenue on capex this year. Investors seem nervous: The stock fell 8.7% in after-hours trading, after dropping 6.6% during the day.
Sure, CoreWeave is building a cloud provider that aims to compete with the big firms, from nearly a standing start. Unlike those bigger firms, CoreWeave doesn’t have a cash-printing sibling business to pay the bills. So it’s got to borrow lots of money to build its facilities. And while a handful of big companies like Meta Platforms, OpenAI and Anthropic have committed to using those facilities in the coming years, there’s still lots of risk. What happens if those companies pull back on their own AI spending?
Consider: CoreWeave finished the quarter with $24.8 billion in debt on its balance sheet but only about $3 billion of cash. And two-thirds of that cash is thanks to an equity investment from Nvidia during the quarter. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said recently, “If we didn’t help CoreWeave exist, they would not exist,” he wasn’t kidding.
Broadcom, OpenAI and Microsoft
Speaking of AI financing, if you want a peek inside the high-stakes negotiations between some of these companies, check out my colleague Anissa Gardizy’s piece today on the Broadcom-OpenAI chip negotiations.
OpenAI is trying to get Broadcom to finance the first $18 billion phase of production for a custom chip designed with Broadcom’s help—but Broadcom will only do so if Microsoft commits to buying 40% of the chips.
There’s no guarantee Microsoft will do that, as the story explains. You can imagine where this scenario might lead. The story is worth a read.
In Other News
• Airbnb’s revenue growth accelerated to 18% in the first quarter, from 10% in the previous two quarters, although the accommodation hosting service projected slightly slower growth for the second quarter.
• Datadog shares rose around 30% after the company reported that revenue grew 32% in its March quarter and raised its full-year projection to 26% growth.
• Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.4 billion, down 31% from a year ago amid a crypto market downturn. Shares fell 5% in after-hours trading.
Today on The Information’s TITV
Check out today’s episode where we delved into xAI’s deal to rent computing capacity to Anthropic.
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