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CoreWeave vs. Nebius: Which AI Infrastructure Stock Has More Upside?
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Key Takeaways
CRWV is expanding AI infrastructure rapidly, with a nearly $100 billion backlog and a 5 GW capacity goal.
NBIS is scaling globally, targeting 4 GW capacity by 2026 amid strong AI cloud demand.
CoreWeave faces high spending and debt, while analysts raised earnings estimates for its rival.
As enterprises race to build and deploy increasingly sophisticated AI models, demand for specialized cloud infrastructure, GPU clusters and high-performance data centers continues to surge. While established cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the market, newer AI-native infrastructure companies are also emerging as compelling investment opportunities. Among them, CoreWeave (CRWV - Free Report) and Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) are emerging AI infrastructure and cloud-computing companies focused on providing high-performance GPU capacity for AI model training and inference.
Investors frequently compare them to high-growth plays that benefit from surging demand for AI compute resources. Per a report from Fortune Business Insights, the global AI infrastructure market size is projected to go from $75.4 billion in 2026 to $497.98 billion by 2034 at a CAGR of 26.6%. Both companies stand to benefit from long-term trends shaping the AI economy, including rising AI adoption, growing demand for GPUs, expanding inference workloads, investments in foundation models and the increasing need for sovereign AI infrastructure.
However, they differ substantially in their business models, customer bases, growth strategies and risk profiles. For investors seeking exposure to the AI infrastructure boom, the question is straightforward: Which stock offers the greater upside?
Let’s uncover.
The Case for CRWV Stock
CoreWeave has quickly become one of the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure providers focused exclusively on AI workloads. A major competitive advantage is its close relationship with NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) . In June, it became the first AI cloud provider to complete the bring-up and full system-level validation of NVDA Vera Rubin NVL72, a next-generation AI platform, positioning CRWV at the forefront of next-generation AI infrastructure and strengthening its competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding AI cloud market. In January, NVIDIA increased its investment in CoreWeave to $2 billion. CRWV aims to reach 5 GW of data center capacity by 2030, strengthening its ability to offer customers access to the latest NVIDIA hardware without requiring major infrastructure investments.
CoreWeave is experiencing rapidly increasing demand for inference-ready compute across GPU generations, which management believes will support long-term margin and earnings growth. Additionally, its storage business is growing quickly, while software, CPU and networking offerings are each expected to surpass $100 million in ARR by 2026. AI adoption is accelerating rapidly, expanding its target market, customer base and platform opportunities. Demand continues to strengthen as existing clients expand and new enterprise verticals adopt AI more broadly. It has expanded its platform to support training, inference and agentic AI workloads, positioning it for sustained, margin-enhancing growth.
CoreWeave has also scaled rapidly, surpassing 3.5 GW of contracted power capacity, with most expected online by 2027, and has secured more than $20 billion in debt and equity financing this year. As AI workloads move from training to inference and enterprise deployment, hyperscalers and foundation model developers are deepening their commitments, while more enterprises are adopting the platform. This momentum led to record backlog gains in the first quarter, supported by early Vera Rubin deployments and continued demand for Blackwell, Hopper and Ampere GPUs, with most new contracts contributing to growth targets through 2027. Its backlog has grown to nearly $100 billion, led by contracts that are already active or expected to come online through 2026 and 2027.
Despite impressive growth, investors should recognize several risks. A lion’s portion of its revenue comes from a relatively small number of large customers. If spending slows among major AI developers, revenue growth could moderate. Building AI infrastructure and maintaining rapid expansion requires continuous financing. First-quarter operating expenses rose to $2.2 billion as CRWV continued aggressively expanding capacity to convert backlog into revenue. Higher infrastructure spending, sales and marketing investments, and growing personnel costs contributed to the increase. It also expects substantial interest expense of $650–$730 million in the second quarter due to rising debt used to fund expansion.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Capital expenditures remain extremely high, with CoreWeave projecting $31 billion–$35 billion in 2026 spending, reflecting ongoing capacity buildouts and higher component costs. While management remains confident in its long-term backlog and growth outlook, the company continues to face significant capital requirements, elevated debt levels and near-term pressure on profitability.
The Case for NBIS Stock
Nebius focuses heavily on AI infrastructure and GPU cloud computing. The company is building a modern AI cloud platform with an emphasis on Europe while also expanding internationally. It is rapidly scaling its infrastructure footprint, increasing contracted power capacity from just over 2 GW to more than 3.5 GW within three months and targeting at least 4 GW by 2026. The company announced a new Pennsylvania data center campus that will support up to 1.2 GW of capacity, marking its second owned gigawatt-scale site in the United States. Most of its upcoming capacity additions are scheduled for late 2026, with major projects expected to begin operations in early 2027.
Demand for Nebius’s full-stack AI platform remains strong, with its sales pipeline growing 3.5x quarter over quarter in the first quarter, excluding large hyperscaler opportunities. Adoption is expanding across industries, including fintech, life sciences, manufacturing, energy and pharmaceuticals. The company is also seeing longer contract durations, larger deal sizes and increased customer prepayments to secure capacity, reflecting strong demand and improving working capital. Notable customers include Revolut, 1X Technologies, Sword Health, Rhoda, and monday.com.
Like CRWV, NBIS also strengthened ties with NVDA. In June, it announced plans to invest approximately £1.7 billion in expanding AI compute capacity across the U.K. The investment includes three new deployments of advanced NVIDIA-powered infrastructure. Nebius also partnered with Kao Data to deploy 22 MW of AI infrastructure in the U.K. under a 10-year agreement, expanding domestic AI computing capacity and supporting its AI Cloud and Token Factory services. It maintains a strong financial position, with $9.3 billion in cash and more than $6 billion raised this year, including funding from NVIDIA and convertible debt offerings. Over 90% of its planned capital expenditures are already supported by cash and contractual commitments.
NBIS also has access to multiple financing sources, including asset-backed financing tied to customer contracts, corporate debt and its at-the-market program, while remaining focused on preserving balance sheet flexibility and limiting shareholder dilution. It pursues acquisitions to supplement inorganic expansion. In the first quarter of 2026, Nebius completed three strategic acquisitions: Tavily, Eigen AI and Clarifai. These deals enhance its capabilities in inference optimization, agentic search and software integration, helping accelerate product development, deepen customer relationships and increase platform stickiness while expanding support for emerging AI workloads.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Although the opportunity is attractive, Nebius faces several challenges. It expects EBITDA margins to remain volatile throughout 2026 as it invests heavily ahead of capacity deployments, with margins likely to weaken in the second quarter before recovering later in the year. The company has also raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $20–$25 billion, reflecting aggressive expansion plans that will require additional financing through debt and other funding sources, increasing capital intensity and execution risk.
Share Performance for CRWV & NBIS
In the past year, CRWV has declined 35.5% while NBIS has gained 455.9%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Valuation for CRWV & NBIS
After its rapid rise, both Nebius and CoreWeave trade at a premium valuation, as suggested by the Value Score of F. In terms of Price/Book, NBIS shares are trading at 9.91X, almost at the level of CRWV’s 10.36X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
How Do Zacks Estimates Compare for NBIS & CRWV?
Analysts have significantly revised their earnings estimates upward for NBIS’ bottom line for the current year.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CRWV’s earnings for the current year has been sharply revised downward over the past 60 days.
For investors seeking a more established AI infrastructure leader, CoreWeave appears to be the stronger choice. Its proven execution, deep customer relationships and strategic access to cutting-edge NVIDIA hardware provide a solid foundation for continued growth. For investors with a higher risk tolerance and a longer investment horizon, Nebius may offer greater upside potential due to its early-stage growth profile and opportunity to expand within an underpenetrated European AI cloud market.
Ultimately, both companies could emerge as long-term winners in the AI infrastructure race. A balanced approach may involve holding both stocks for now, with CoreWeave serving as the relatively lower-risk core position and Nebius acting as a higher-potential investment.
View the Zacks #1 Rank List
Image: Bigstock
CoreWeave vs. Nebius: Which AI Infrastructure Stock Has More Upside?
Key Takeaways
As enterprises race to build and deploy increasingly sophisticated AI models, demand for specialized cloud infrastructure, GPU clusters and high-performance data centers continues to surge. While established cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the market, newer AI-native infrastructure companies are also emerging as compelling investment opportunities. Among them, CoreWeave (CRWV - Free Report) and Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) are emerging AI infrastructure and cloud-computing companies focused on providing high-performance GPU capacity for AI model training and inference.
Investors frequently compare them to high-growth plays that benefit from surging demand for AI compute resources. Per a report from Fortune Business Insights, the global AI infrastructure market size is projected to go from $75.4 billion in 2026 to $497.98 billion by 2034 at a CAGR of 26.6%. Both companies stand to benefit from long-term trends shaping the AI economy, including rising AI adoption, growing demand for GPUs, expanding inference workloads, investments in foundation models and the increasing need for sovereign AI infrastructure.
However, they differ substantially in their business models, customer bases, growth strategies and risk profiles. For investors seeking exposure to the AI infrastructure boom, the question is straightforward: Which stock offers the greater upside?
Let’s uncover.
The Case for CRWV Stock
CoreWeave has quickly become one of the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure providers focused exclusively on AI workloads. A major competitive advantage is its close relationship with NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) . In June, it became the first AI cloud provider to complete the bring-up and full system-level validation of NVDA Vera Rubin NVL72, a next-generation AI platform, positioning CRWV at the forefront of next-generation AI infrastructure and strengthening its competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding AI cloud market. In January, NVIDIA increased its investment in CoreWeave to $2 billion. CRWV aims to reach 5 GW of data center capacity by 2030, strengthening its ability to offer customers access to the latest NVIDIA hardware without requiring major infrastructure investments.
CoreWeave is experiencing rapidly increasing demand for inference-ready compute across GPU generations, which management believes will support long-term margin and earnings growth. Additionally, its storage business is growing quickly, while software, CPU and networking offerings are each expected to surpass $100 million in ARR by 2026. AI adoption is accelerating rapidly, expanding its target market, customer base and platform opportunities. Demand continues to strengthen as existing clients expand and new enterprise verticals adopt AI more broadly. It has expanded its platform to support training, inference and agentic AI workloads, positioning it for sustained, margin-enhancing growth.
CoreWeave has also scaled rapidly, surpassing 3.5 GW of contracted power capacity, with most expected online by 2027, and has secured more than $20 billion in debt and equity financing this year. As AI workloads move from training to inference and enterprise deployment, hyperscalers and foundation model developers are deepening their commitments, while more enterprises are adopting the platform. This momentum led to record backlog gains in the first quarter, supported by early Vera Rubin deployments and continued demand for Blackwell, Hopper and Ampere GPUs, with most new contracts contributing to growth targets through 2027. Its backlog has grown to nearly $100 billion, led by contracts that are already active or expected to come online through 2026 and 2027.
Despite impressive growth, investors should recognize several risks. A lion’s portion of its revenue comes from a relatively small number of large customers. If spending slows among major AI developers, revenue growth could moderate. Building AI infrastructure and maintaining rapid expansion requires continuous financing. First-quarter operating expenses rose to $2.2 billion as CRWV continued aggressively expanding capacity to convert backlog into revenue. Higher infrastructure spending, sales and marketing investments, and growing personnel costs contributed to the increase. It also expects substantial interest expense of $650–$730 million in the second quarter due to rising debt used to fund expansion.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Capital expenditures remain extremely high, with CoreWeave projecting $31 billion–$35 billion in 2026 spending, reflecting ongoing capacity buildouts and higher component costs. While management remains confident in its long-term backlog and growth outlook, the company continues to face significant capital requirements, elevated debt levels and near-term pressure on profitability.
The Case for NBIS Stock
Nebius focuses heavily on AI infrastructure and GPU cloud computing. The company is building a modern AI cloud platform with an emphasis on Europe while also expanding internationally. It is rapidly scaling its infrastructure footprint, increasing contracted power capacity from just over 2 GW to more than 3.5 GW within three months and targeting at least 4 GW by 2026. The company announced a new Pennsylvania data center campus that will support up to 1.2 GW of capacity, marking its second owned gigawatt-scale site in the United States. Most of its upcoming capacity additions are scheduled for late 2026, with major projects expected to begin operations in early 2027.
Demand for Nebius’s full-stack AI platform remains strong, with its sales pipeline growing 3.5x quarter over quarter in the first quarter, excluding large hyperscaler opportunities. Adoption is expanding across industries, including fintech, life sciences, manufacturing, energy and pharmaceuticals. The company is also seeing longer contract durations, larger deal sizes and increased customer prepayments to secure capacity, reflecting strong demand and improving working capital. Notable customers include Revolut, 1X Technologies, Sword Health, Rhoda, and monday.com.
Like CRWV, NBIS also strengthened ties with NVDA. In June, it announced plans to invest approximately £1.7 billion in expanding AI compute capacity across the U.K. The investment includes three new deployments of advanced NVIDIA-powered infrastructure. Nebius also partnered with Kao Data to deploy 22 MW of AI infrastructure in the U.K. under a 10-year agreement, expanding domestic AI computing capacity and supporting its AI Cloud and Token Factory services. It maintains a strong financial position, with $9.3 billion in cash and more than $6 billion raised this year, including funding from NVIDIA and convertible debt offerings. Over 90% of its planned capital expenditures are already supported by cash and contractual commitments.
NBIS also has access to multiple financing sources, including asset-backed financing tied to customer contracts, corporate debt and its at-the-market program, while remaining focused on preserving balance sheet flexibility and limiting shareholder dilution. It pursues acquisitions to supplement inorganic expansion. In the first quarter of 2026, Nebius completed three strategic acquisitions: Tavily, Eigen AI and Clarifai. These deals enhance its capabilities in inference optimization, agentic search and software integration, helping accelerate product development, deepen customer relationships and increase platform stickiness while expanding support for emerging AI workloads.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Although the opportunity is attractive, Nebius faces several challenges. It expects EBITDA margins to remain volatile throughout 2026 as it invests heavily ahead of capacity deployments, with margins likely to weaken in the second quarter before recovering later in the year. The company has also raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $20–$25 billion, reflecting aggressive expansion plans that will require additional financing through debt and other funding sources, increasing capital intensity and execution risk.
Share Performance for CRWV & NBIS
In the past year, CRWV has declined 35.5% while NBIS has gained 455.9%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Valuation for CRWV & NBIS
After its rapid rise, both Nebius and CoreWeave trade at a premium valuation, as suggested by the Value Score of F. In terms of Price/Book, NBIS shares are trading at 9.91X, almost at the level of CRWV’s 10.36X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
How Do Zacks Estimates Compare for NBIS & CRWV?
Analysts have significantly revised their earnings estimates upward for NBIS’ bottom line for the current year.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CRWV’s earnings for the current year has been sharply revised downward over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NBIS or CRWV: Which Stock Has More Upside?
Both CRWV and NBIS currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
For investors seeking a more established AI infrastructure leader, CoreWeave appears to be the stronger choice. Its proven execution, deep customer relationships and strategic access to cutting-edge NVIDIA hardware provide a solid foundation for continued growth. For investors with a higher risk tolerance and a longer investment horizon, Nebius may offer greater upside potential due to its early-stage growth profile and opportunity to expand within an underpenetrated European AI cloud market.
Ultimately, both companies could emerge as long-term winners in the AI infrastructure race. A balanced approach may involve holding both stocks for now, with CoreWeave serving as the relatively lower-risk core position and Nebius acting as a higher-potential investment.