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 target company’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 the Fortune Brainstorm AI 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 price is seesawing but noted the IPO took place just before President Trump’s tariffs went into effect, a notably uncertain moment for the overall economy. He expressed pride in launching a successful IPO despite those headwinds.
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. Some 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 approximately eight percent.
Intrator sees his company as a disruptor whose unconventional tactics may take some getting used to. He stated that when you introduce a new model 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 major tech industry players. In this role, 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 to CoreWeave, Intrator swatted away such concerns. He stated that 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 its business. After acquiring the AI developer platform Weights & Biases 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.
The company also recently announced an expansion of its cloud partnership with OpenAI and said it has plans to move into the federal market, where it aims to provide cloud infrastructure to U.S. government agencies and the defense industrial base.