AI TRENDS | CoreWeave Raises 2026 Guidance as AI Stocks Rally

U.S. stock futures jumped, with Nasdaq 100 futures up 1.85% and S&P 500 futures up 0.82%. According to Sina Finance, CoreWeave’s third-quarter revenue reached $3.661 billion, up 168% year over year and above the $3.55 billion market forecast, and the company raised its 2026 guidance. Its shares rose more than 15% in premarket trading, while Nebius gained more than 12% and IREN Ltd. rose more than 7%. CoreWeave’s results eased concerns about slowing investment in AI infrastructure and helped lift other technology stocks. AI hardware stocks also climbed, led by memory, optical communications and semiconductor shares. SK Hynix, SanDisk, Lumentum and Coherent rose more than 8%. Micron Technology, Seagate Technology, Western Digital, Marvell Technology, Corning, Super Micro Computer, Dell Technologies, Intel and Arm gained more than 6%; Nvidia, AMD and Applied Materials rose more than 5%; and Oracle, Broadcom and ASML advanced more than 4%. CoreWeave reported a third-quarter net loss of $709 million, compared with a $110 million loss a year earlier. Its adjusted loss per share was $0.95, narrower than the $1.16 loss expected by the market. Its adjusted operating margin rose from 1% in the first quarter to 5% in the second quarter and more than 10% in the third, reaching double digits one quarter ahead of plan. The company now expects 2026 revenue of $13 billion to $13.3 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion. It expects adjusted operating profit of $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, up from its previous outlook of $960 million to $1.15 billion. As of the end of September 2026, contracted revenue backlog stood at $132.5 billion, versus $104 billion at the end of June. CoreWeave expects its adjusted net loss to fall significantly in 2027 and to turn into adjusted net income in the first half of 2028 and for the full year. Executives said the company had received upfront payments for 70% of its deals this year, with some customers paying as much as 100% of contract value in advance. They said demand for 2028 was several times current available capacity and that effective demand secured by the end of 2027 was 10 times that capacity. CEO Michael Intrator said CoreWeave was raising GPU-compute rental prices, and older-generation GPUs remained commercially valuable. The company raised prices across product configurations by an average of about 25% in July and another 10% in the third quarter. Prices continued to rise in the fourth quarter, outpacing cost increases. Separately, Goldman Sachs analysts projected that Anthropic’s revenue would reach $685 billion by the end of 2030, nearly 150 times its $4.59 billion in 2025. They said its spending on computing infrastructure could increase more than tenfold to nearly $400 billion, with computing profits expanding by roughly the same multiple. Media reports said Anthropic’s investment bankers were considering raising its IPO valuation to $1.5 trillion or more.