CoreWeave gains 19%, Nebius surges 34% in post-earnings neocloud rally

AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave saw shares climb 19% on Wednesday following strong second-quarter earnings. The company reported Q2 revenue of $2.6 billion, up 112% from $1.2 billion in the same quarter last year, driven by surging demand from hyperscalers for AI compute capacity. CoreWeave guided for third-quarter revenue between $3.4 billion and $3.6 billion.

The company remains unprofitable. Operating expenses more than doubled year-on-year and marginally exceeded revenue. CoreWeave ended Tuesday up 26% since the start of the year.

The company's revenue backlog stood at $104 billion as of June 30, excluding $25 billion in new customer commitments for the third quarter. CEO Michael Intrator told CNBC: "To put that in perspective, like $25 billion is virtually the size of our backlog a year ago, and so it gives you an idea of how much demand there is for our product and how much it's growing."

The earnings success reflected broader momentum in the neocloud sector. Amsterdam-listed Nebius surged 34% after announcing 514% revenue growth to $575 million and quadrupling the total value of contracts won. The stock has risen over 150% in the past 12 months. U.K.-based Nscale, targeting an IPO this year, has raised billions in equity, debt and project financing during 2026.

The rally extended to adjacent hardware makers. Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, reported better-than-expected profit growth. Supermicro, which makes data center hardware, gained 19% after reporting over $60 billion in new orders over the past year.

CoreWeave has taken on significant debt to build AI infrastructure. Operating expenses rose to $2.6 billion from $1.2 billion a year earlier, resulting in a $49 million operating loss versus $19 million operating income in the prior year. The company forecasts full-year revenue of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion and adjusted operating income of $960 million to $1.15 billion.

Q2 highlights included winning customers such as Bentley Systems, Grammarly, Isomorphic Labs and Sunday Robotics. CoreWeave deepened partnerships with Jane Street through $1 billion in strategic investments, while Meta committed an additional $21 billion during the quarter.

Citi analysts called it "one of the cleaner quarters" for CoreWeave since its public listing last year. The analysts cited confident messaging around robust AI demand, stronger pricing power, growing software and tokens revenue, and better-than-expected margins. They noted upward revisions to profitability guidance and positive execution updates as signs of improving investor confidence and profitability, with positive implications for the broader hyperscaler and neocloud space.