CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) shares surged about 15% to $55.47 in Wednesday’s premarket trading after the AI cloud provider reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter results and raised its 2026 financial forecasts. Management also outlined plans to fund the company’s infrastructure expansion through customer payments and borrowing backed by infrastructure and customer contracts.
The company reported third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion, up 168% from $1.37 billion a year earlier and above the $3.56 billion Wall Street estimate cited by Bloomberg. Its reported loss of $1.27 per share was also narrower than Bloomberg’s consensus estimate of $1.46 per share.
CoreWeave generated $379 million in adjusted operating income during the quarter, exceeding its earlier guidance of $200 million to $260 million. Its adjusted operating margin improved to 10% from 5% in the second quarter.
CoreWeave raised its full-year revenue guidance to $13 billion to $13.3 billion, up from its previous forecast of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion, and increased its adjusted operating income forecast to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion. The midpoint of the new operating income forecast is 26% higher than the midpoint of its previous guidance.
The company also raised its year-end annualized revenue run-rate forecast to $20 billion to $21 billion. The figure annualizes projected December 2026 revenue and does not represent the company’s expected full-year revenue.
Revenue backlog reached $132.5 billion at the end of September, compared with $104 billion three months earlier. The backlog includes expected revenue from committed customer contracts, subject to infrastructure delivery and service availability requirements.
CoreWeave’s premarket advance followed an approximately 11% decline in its shares over November’s first seven trading sessions.
Separately, CoreWeave Tokenized bStocks (CRWVB) traded at $55.46, gaining 17% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. CRWVB is a tokenized instrument offering economic exposure to CoreWeave shares, not the Nasdaq-listed stock itself.
CoreWeave Raises Capital Spending Outlook and Details Expansion Funding
CoreWeave’s third-quarter capital expenditures reached $14.5 billion, up from $9.4 billion in the second quarter. The company also raised the lower end of its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $37 billion from $35 billion, maintaining the upper end at $39 billion. The company attributed the revision to plans to deploy infrastructure and deliver capacity to customers earlier than previously expected.
To support this expansion, CoreWeave expects to receive about $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits tied to signed contracts over the next three months, management said during its November 10 earnings call.
More than $3 billion of those expected payments relates to existing cloud infrastructure that requires no additional capital expenditure. CEO Michael Intrator said the infrastructure had already been fully paid off, meaning the associated payments would not require further debt servicing.
CoreWeave generated $2 billion in operating cash flow during the third quarter, while its total debt stood at approximately $46.9 billion at the end of September.
The company plans to fund most of its remaining capital requirements through operating cash flow, customer payments and borrowing secured by infrastructure and customer contracts. After accounting for those funding sources, management expects to raise less than $5 billion in additional parent-company capital through 2027.
CoreWeave Outlines GPU Renewal Potential and Rising Interest Costs
CoreWeave disclosed that contracts covering more than 130,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) are scheduled to expire in 2027. Management estimated that recontracting this capacity at current prices could generate nearly $4 billion in additional annualized revenue without further capital expenditure. Contracts covering approximately 170,000 more GPUs are scheduled to expire in 2028.
CoreWeave’s reported backlog does not include potential recontracting revenue, which depends on future customer agreements and prevailing prices rather than representing revenue already secured.
CoreWeave also faces substantial interest expenses. The company’s third-quarter net loss widened to $709 million from $110 million a year earlier, despite stronger revenue and operating results. Net interest expense rose to $846 million from $310 million over the same period.
For the fourth quarter, the company forecasts interest expense of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion, reflecting the substantial financing requirements of its infrastructure expansion.
Management expects CoreWeave’s adjusted net losses to narrow significantly in 2027 and projects positive adjusted net income in the first half of 2028 and for the full year. The forecast refers to adjusted earnings, not profitability under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).