CoreWeave exceeded analysts’ estimates for revenue in the first quarter, but the forecast for the second quarter came in light.

The business has been raising billions of dollars in debt to finance its data center buildout as it serves the leading AI model developers.

CoreWeave shares tumbled as much as 10% in extended trading on Thursday after the AI infrastructure provider issued light revenue guidance and increased its 2026 capital spending forecast.

Here’s how the enterprise did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Revenue: $2.08 billion vs. $1.97 billion expected

Revenue more than doubled in the quarter, from $981.8 million a year earlier, according to a statement. Net deficit widened to $740 million from $315 million, or $1.49 per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

CoreWeave is targeting $2.45 billion to $2.6 billion in second-quarter revenue. The middle of the range, $2.53 billion, was trailed the $2.69 billion LSEG consensus. For 2026, CoreWeave maintained its revenue guidance. calling for $12 billion to $13 billion in sales.

The enterprise ended the quarter with about 3.5 gigawatts of total contracted power, along with a $99.4 billion revenue backlog.

“We have reached hyperscale,” CoreWeave’s co-founder and CEO, Mike Intrator, noted on a conference call with analysts. The organization has diversified its business, with 10 clients now committed to spending at least $1 billion on its products, he noted. In 2024, 62% of revenue came from Microsoft.

While revenue is surging, operating expenses are growing even faster. Tech and infrastructure costs jumped 127% in the quarter to $1.27 billion, while sales and industry costs increased more than sixfold to $69 million.

CoreWeave has been racing top cloud providers such as Amazon to open data centers packed with Nvidia graphics processing units to rent to companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, that are training and running artificial intelligence models. CoreWeave is competing with large and highly profitable cloud companies, and is borrowing heavily in the process to finance its data center development.

In the first quarter, CoreWeave mentioned it raised $8.5 billion in fresh debt, after announcing deals with AI startups Cline and Perplexity. It’s secured more than $20 billion in debt and equity this year, the firm remarked, closing the quarter with almost $25 billion in debt.

Meanwhile, major backer Nvidia remarked early this year it bought $2 billion in additional stock in CoreWeave, which committed to adopting a variety of the chipmaker’s products. This also touches on aspects of portfolio.

As of Thursday’s close, CoreWeave shares had climbed almost 80% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 had gained 7%.

S&P has upgraded its CoreWeave credit rating to positive from stable, noted Nitin Agrawal, CoreWeave’s finance chief.

The firm projected $31 billion to $35 billion in 2026 capital expenditures, up from a range of $30 billion to $35 billion that it revealed in February. The revision of the low end of the range has to do with component prices, Agrawal remarked.

“It’s an issue, it’s a problem, but we have an incredible capacity to navigate the supply chain,” Intrator stated. “We have great partners, and we include the pricing that is required To end up delivering the infrastructure that’s required, but also ensuring that we’re able to secure the economics that we’re targeting.”

CoreWeave reiterated that annualized revenue should exceed $30 billion by the end of 2027.

“I always think that everyone is looking at the stock and focusing on the trees and missing the forest, right?” Intrator told CNBC in an interview. “The forest is, there’s this seismic level change occurring in our economy and being driven by these incredible tech companies that are dependent upon the infrastructure.”

CoreWeave reiterated that it’s plans to have 1.7 gigawatts of power online by year end.

“That’s the forest,” he mentioned.

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