CoreWeave vs Nebius: Same AI Boom, Opposite Stock Reactions. What Separates Them
CoreWeave reported on 10 November and its stock jumped nearly 25% the next day. Nebius reported two days later and fell about 17%. Both sell the same thing, AI computing power on Nvidia chips, in the same boom. So what separates them?
The short answer
CoreWeave is the bigger, more indebted neocloud: $3.66 billion of Q3 revenue, a $709 million net loss and about $46.9 billion of debt, but it raised guidance. Nebius is smaller and near break-even, but it cut its 2026 revenue outlook to the low end and lifted capex sharply. Investors rewarded raised guidance and punished a cut.
CoreWeave vs Nebius: side-by-side
Metric | CoreWeave (CRWV) | Nebius (NBIS) |
Q3 2026 revenue | $3,661M | $980.8M |
Revenue growth (YoY) | +168% | +571% |
Q3 net loss | $709M | $37.5M (continuing ops) |
Adjusted EBITDA (margin) | $2,256M (62%) | $465.8M (47%) |
Contracted revenue | ~$132.5B backlog | $38.7B RPO |
2026 revenue guidance | $13.0B–$13.3B (raised) | Low end of $3.0B–$3.4B (cut) |
2026 capex guidance | $37B–$39B | ~$27B (from $20B–$25B) |
Debt and funding | ~$46.9B debt on balance sheet | $5.75B converts, ~$1.0B ATM, $3.5B Citi facility |
Next-year outlook | n/a in release | 2027 revenue $12B–$13B; capex $40B–$45B |
Stock move after results | +24.7% (Nov 11) | −16.8% (Nov 12) |
CoreWeave figures are from its Q3 2026 release; Nebius figures from its Q3 2026 shareholder letter filed with the SEC. CoreWeave’s debt is our sum of the four debt lines on its 30 September balance sheet; CNBC described it as almost $47 billion. Backlog and RPO are defined differently, so compare them with care. Stock moves are our calculation from Yahoo Finance closes.
What do CoreWeave and Nebius actually sell?
Both are “neoclouds”: companies that build or lease data centers, fill them with Nvidia GPU systems and rent that capacity to AI labs and large tech firms. CoreWeave sells mostly through long, committed contracts and reports a revenue backlog of about $132.5 billion, up from $104 billion in June according to CNBC. Nebius Group N.V., listed on Nasdaq, sells a similar AI cloud, plus inference tools such as its Token Factory platform. Its AI cloud brought in $973.8 million, about 99% of group revenue.
Who is bigger and growing faster?
CoreWeave is bigger by a wide margin: Q3 revenue of $3.66 billion was about 3.7 times Nebius’s $981 million. Nebius grew faster in percentage terms, 571% against 168%, but from a much smaller base. There is also a quality-of-revenue point. Nebius says about $325 million of its Q3 revenue was non-recurring, recognised under its new asset-light model, where partners deploy Nebius’s architecture and platform. Strip that out and the underlying quarter was smaller.
Why did CoreWeave rise and Nebius fall?
Guidance direction. CoreWeave raised its 2026 revenue guidance to $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion and said it expects about $9 billion of customer prepayments and deposits in the next three months. Nebius beat expectations for the quarter, with adjusted EPS of 31 cents against an expected 69-cent loss per LSEG, according to CNBC, but cut its 2026 revenue outlook to the low end of its range.
Nebius blamed delays at third-party data center sites, including New Jersey, where it is moving to Bloom Energy fuel cells. It said it now expects to deliver more than half the capacity contracted with Microsoft there by year-end, with the rest in the second quarter of 2027, and that ARR it had expected by December should now arrive in February. It is shifting most new capacity to sites it owns, which it says are on time or ahead of schedule.
The market backdrop mattered too. Both stocks rallied on 11 November after CoreWeave’s results, and both fell on 12 November, when Investopedia reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had stepped down. Investopedia described CoreWeave and Nebius as companies Nvidia invests in. We cover the Nvidia situation in a separate explainer and do not repeat it here.
Who carries more debt and spending risk?
CoreWeave, in absolute terms. Its 30 September balance sheet shows about $46.9 billion of debt, it paid $846 million of net interest in Q3, and CNBC reported that some CoreWeave bond yields recently topped 16%. CoreWeave plans $37 billion to $39 billion of 2026 capital spending.
Nebius is earlier on the same path. It ended Q3 with $7.4 billion of cash after issuing $5.75 billion of convertible notes in August, raising about $1.0 billion through an at-the-market share programme and adding a $3.5 billion Citi facility in October. Its plans are now much bigger: about $27 billion of 2026 capex, up from $20 billion to $25 billion, and $40 billion to $45 billion in 2027, against a FactSet estimate of $28.77 billion cited by CNBC. Nebius says prepayments on its Q3 agreements covered more than 100% of the associated capex.
Page 21 analysis: capex vs revenue, 2026 guidance
2026 guidance | CoreWeave | Nebius |
Revenue | $13.0B–$13.3B | ~$3.0B (low end of range) |
Capital expenditure | $37B–$39B | ~$27B |
Capex per $1 of revenue | ~$2.8–$3.0 | ~$9 |
Our calculation from each company’s guidance, using the ends of each range. Nebius is spending roughly $9 for every $1 of 2026 revenue it expects, about three times CoreWeave’s ratio, because it is building for 2027, when it guides to $12 billion to $13 billion of revenue. That makes its story more dependent on capacity arriving on time, which is exactly what slipped this quarter.
Which is closer to profit?
Nebius, on its own guidance. It lost $37.5 million from continuing operations in Q3 and says it expects to reach pre-tax break-even in Q4 2027, calculated after financing costs and assuming a five-year depreciation life for compute. CoreWeave lost $709 million in Q3 as depreciation and interest consumed its $2.26 billion of adjusted EBITDA, as we explained in how CoreWeave makes money.
CoreWeave vs Nebius FAQs
What is the difference between CoreWeave and Nebius?
Both rent Nvidia-based AI computing capacity. CoreWeave is US-based, nearly four times bigger by quarterly revenue ($3.66 billion vs $981 million in Q3 2026) and carries far more debt (about $46.9 billion on its 30 September balance sheet). Nebius, a Nasdaq-listed Dutch company (Nebius Group N.V.), is smaller and growing faster in percentage terms, and was close to break-even in Q3, with a $37.5 million net loss from continuing operations.
Why did Nebius stock fall after earnings?
Nebius beat revenue and earnings expectations, but cut its 2026 revenue outlook to the low end of its $3.0 billion to $3.4 billion range because some third-party data center capacity was delayed, and raised its capex plans. Its 2027 capex outlook of $40 billion to $45 billion was well above the $28.77 billion FactSet estimate cited by CNBC. The shares fell 16.8% on 12 November.
What is a neocloud?
A neocloud is a newer cloud company that specialises in renting GPU computing power for AI, as opposed to general-purpose clouds like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN are commonly grouped under the term.
Is CoreWeave or Nebius more profitable?
Neither is profitable on a net basis yet. In Q3 2026 CoreWeave lost $709 million and Nebius lost $37.5 million from continuing operations. On adjusted EBITDA, CoreWeave’s margin was 62% and Nebius’s 47%. Nebius says it expects to reach pre-tax break-even in Q4 2027.
Does Nvidia own shares in CoreWeave and Nebius?
Investopedia described both as companies Nvidia invests in. CNBC reported that Nvidia held about $329 million of Nebius shares at the end of June 2026, according to a filing.
Sources
Related on Page 21
This article is for general information only and is not investment advice. Figures are from company releases and filings and the reports linked above, as of 12 November 2026.
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