CoreWeave Stock Stumbles Despite AI Boom Riding the Wave or Wiping Out

• CoreWeave shares declined 8% following a revenue guidance that fell short of analyst expectations, despite impressive year-over-year growth in Q4.
• The company cites ongoing shortages of Nvidia graphics chips as a factor impacting revenue, with average prices for H100 processors remaining steady.
• CoreWeave is aggressively expanding its infrastructure, targeting significant increases in power capacity and capital expenditures for 2026 and beyond.
• Despite the stock dip, CoreWeave's CEO emphasizes strong demand for AI infrastructure and a willingness to accept short-term margin hits for long-term growth.

Life is Like a Box of GPUs

Mama always said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." Turns out, the stock market is kinda like that too. This CoreWeave company, they're big in AI, like Jenny was big in peace and love. They had a bit of a tumble, their shares fell 8% after hours on Thursday. Seems like they didn't quite meet everyone's expectations on how much money they were gonna bring in this quarter. Like me trying to play ping pong against those Chinese fellas, sometimes you just can't keep up.

Running on Empty Data Centers

They grew a whole lot last year, about 110% they said, which is faster than I can run across a football field. But they're having a hard time getting enough of those Nvidia graphics chips. These chips are like the shrimp in Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., they're used in everything AI, from making those fancy chatbots to helping computers learn stuff faster than Forrest learns to play the harmonica. The CEO, that's the head honcho, Mike Intrator, he said those chips are hard to come by, like finding a calm day in a hurricane. He said prices for Nvidia's H100 processors were steady, and older A100 prices went up, its all a little like Waymo's Robotaxi Revolution Rolls Onward – things keep moving and changing in the AI landscape.

Power Up, Buttercup

CoreWeave is trying to build more data centers, those are big buildings full of computers. They want to have lots of power, more than 1.7 gigawatts of active power by 2026. That's enough to power a whole bunch of lightbulbs, maybe even enough to light up the whole town of Greenbow, Alabama. It reminded me a bit of Lieutenant Dan always pushing me harder, faster, stronger. They plan on spending a whole heap of money, $30 billion to $35 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, to do it. "Run Forrest, run" and build, Coreweave, build.

Demand Explosion

Mr. Intrator, the CEO, says everyone wants in on the AI action. Not just the big cloud companies, but also regular businesses and even governments. It's like everyone suddenly wants to learn how to play the harmonica. They have a whole backlog of orders, $66.8 billion worth, which is more money than I ever saw in my life. He's willing to make less money now so they can build more stuff faster. It's like giving up a box of chocolates today to get a whole truckload tomorrow.

Debt and Dreams

After going public, they reported having a good amount of debt, $21.37 billion as of last December. AI is on everyone's mind lately, and some announcements have made investors a little worried. CoreWeave is still doing pretty well, though. They supply AI stuff to big companies like Google and OpenAI. Their stock was up a good bit this year, even with this little stumble. This reminds me of when Bubba invested our money in Apple. Sometimes, you gotta take a chance.

New Frontiers in the Cloud

CoreWeave is known for being good at cloud stuff. They also started doing object storage, which is kinda like having a really big closet to keep all your files. This helps them compete with the big boys, like Amazon Web Services, which is bigger than a herd of elephants. As Mama said, you have to do the best with what God gave you. And CoreWeave seems to be doing just that, even when the stock market feels a little bit like running in mud.