CoreWeave Raises 2026 Revenue Forecast to $13 Billion as Quarterly Interest Expense Tops Operating Income

A day after Nvidia shares fell more than 6% on the probe into CEO Jensen Huang, CoreWeave reported third-quarter results on Tuesday, Nov. 10 that answered the demand question and left the financing question wide open.

Revenue came in at $3.66 billion, up 168% from a year earlier and above the roughly $3.55 billion analysts expected. The net loss widened to $709 million from $110 million.

Guidance goes up

CoreWeave now expects 2026 revenue of $13 billion to $13.3 billion, up from the $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion it forecast in August. Analysts polled by LSEG had been looking for $12.86 billion.

Adjusted operating income guidance rose to $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion from $960 million to $1.15 billion. Visible Alpha analysts had expected $1.07 billion.

Revenue backlog reached $132.5 billion at the end of September, up from $104 billion at the end of June. Active power passed 1.7 gigawatts. CEO Mike Intrator said the company is largely sold out of capacity through next year, with about ten times as much demand as available capacity.

The company also said it expects to become profitable on an adjusted basis in the first half of 2028.

The cost of the buildout

Quarterly capital spending jumped to $14.5 billion from $9.4 billion in the prior quarter. Full-year capex is now guided to $37 billion to $39 billion, with the low end raised from $35 billion because capacity is reaching customers sooner than planned.

Net interest expense nearly tripled to $846 million from $310 million a year ago. That is more than the $207 million of GAAP operating income the company produced in the quarter. CoreWeave guided fourth-quarter interest expense to $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.

Total debt was about $46.9 billion at the end of September. Some CoreWeave bond yields have recently topped 16%, according to CNBC.

What management says about funding

Finance chief Nitin Agrawal told analysts the company does not intend to issue more parent-level unsecured debt through 2027 "at current yields." He said the asset-level secured debt market has stayed stable, with CoreWeave's loans trading around par. He projected under $5 billion in parent-level debt financing through 2027.

A new debt raise tied to a set of customer contracts is planned in the coming weeks, Agrawal said.

Intrator said most 2027 capital will come from customer prepayments and from hardware partners, with "a limited amount" raised on top. He said $9 billion in prepayments and deposits will flow in over the next three months.

"Customer contracts come first, and investment follows," Intrator said in a statement. "Because CoreWeave's investments are tied to committed demand, lenders have something concrete to lend against and customers typically help fund the buildout."

The skeptics

The worry is not that orders are drying up. It is the price of the money. Joe Tigay, a portfolio manager at Equity Armor Investments, wrote that "the business can execute well and still face a tougher financing environment," adding that "the cost and availability of capital remain critical."

Analyst Gil Luria has raised concerns about CoreWeave's ability to secure additional capital as its spending climbs.

A loan secured on GPUs is only as sound as the customer contract behind it and the resale value of the chips. That is the structure CoreWeave is leaning on, and the contracts are the part management points to as its safeguard.

Politics and the data-center backlash

Investors have also been weighing a tougher regulatory climate for data centers after the Democratic wins in the midterms. Public pushback over water and power use has been growing.

Intrator told Reuters he expects "a lot more scrutiny on how you build, how you use resources," but does not think it will require a material change in how CoreWeave builds or materially distort costs. He did say he expects a pacing issue.

BigGo Finance reported that Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has called for a pause on data-center approvals. That is a single-source account, and CoreWeave has not said how it would affect its projects.

The stock

CoreWeave shares had lost more than 40% of their value over the past month, as investors rotated out of AI infrastructure names. Extended-trading moves after the report were choppy. Several accounts had the stock up about 5% at one point, while another had it giving back that gain and trading about 4% lower later.

Regular trading has not opened today, Nov. 11, so the first full-session reaction is still ahead.

Peer Nebius, also down sharply over the past month, is scheduled to report earnings Thursday, Nov. 12. Its shares got a small lift from CoreWeave's results.

The near-term test is the contract-backed debt raise Agrawal said is coming in the weeks ahead. Its pricing will show whether lenders see the $132.5 billion backlog the way management does.