It has been quite a year for Coreweave. The AI cloud infrastructure provider went public in March in one of the biggest and most anticipated IPOs of the year, though it did not live up to its initial hype. Another setback occurred in October when a planned acquisition of its business partner, Core Scientific, faltered due to skepticism from the acquisition target’s shareholders.
Throughout the year, the firm has acquired a number of different companies. Its stock price has experienced significant volatility, going up and down, and the company has been both criticized and lauded for its role in the booming AI data center market.
At Fortune’s AI Brainstorm summit in San Francisco, Coreweave’s co-founder and CEO, Michael Intrator, defended his company’s performance. He noted that Coreweave is in the midst of creating a new business model for how cloud computing can be built and run. The company’s collection of Nvidia GPUs is so valuable that they borrow against it to help finance their business. Intrator suggested that charting a new path is destined to encounter some road bumps.
When questioned about the occasionally unstable stock price, Intrator said people can be myopic. He admitted the stock is see-sawing but noted the IPO took place not long before President Trump’s tariffs went into effect, a notably uncertain moment for the overall economy. He stated that despite launching into one of the most challenging environments, the company was able to execute a successful IPO and he is proud of what has been accomplished.
Coreweave’s stock debuted at $40 in March. Over the past eight months, it climbed to well over $150 but currently rests at around $90. Its more wary critics have compared it to a meme stock due to its penchant for dramatic swings.
Some uncertainty around the stock has been credited to the company’s hefty level of debt. Not long after Coreweave announced a deal to issue even more debt to finance its data center buildout, its stock dropped some eight percent. Intrator seems to see his company as a disruptor, whose unconventional tactics may take some getting used to. He said that when you introduce a new way of doing business and disrupt a static environment, it will take some people time to adjust.
Coreweave actually started its corporate life as a crypto-miner but quickly built itself into a pivotal provider of AI infrastructure to some of the tech industry’s major players. It provides GPUs to AI developers and has major partnerships with Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta, and others.
Another topic discussed was the notion of circularity within the AI industry. Circular business deals, where a small number of powerful AI companies invest in one another, have been frequently criticized and have raised questions about the industry’s long-term economic stability. Since Nvidia is both an investor and a supplier of GPUs to Coreweave, Intrator swatted away such concerns. He said companies are trying to address a violent change in supply and demand, and you do that by working together.
Since the IPO, Coreweave has continued efforts to expand. After acquiring the AI developer platform Weights and Balances in March, it went on to acquire OpenPipe, a startup that helps companies create and deploy AI agents. In October, it also made deals to acquire Marimo, the creator of an open source notebook, and Monolith, another AI company. It recently announced an expansion of its cloud partnership with OpenAI and revealed plans to move into the federal market to provide cloud infrastructure to U.S. government agencies and the defense industrial base.