"Red Alert" Rings Buying Signal? AI Cloud Giant CoreWeave (CRWV.US) is Approaching a Turning Point in its Darkest Hour

Notice that CoreWeave (CRWV.US), the leader in cloud AI computing power leasing, has experienced a nightmare-like quarter, with market concerns about the AI bubble and issues with the company's operations coming to a head. The survival crisis of its second-largest customer, OpenAI, has brought "red alert" level pressure to this global leader in new cloud services. Despite this, the structural tailwind of artificial intelligence remains strong, and as positive catalysts approach at a time when the outlook is showing signs of a turning point, abandoning CoreWeave would be premature. Referring to past cases such as Alphabet, analyst Uttam Dey believes that the market's negative reaction to this situation is actually a buying opportunity, maintaining a "strong buy" rating. Nightmare-like quarter In August of this year, analyst Uttam Dey raised CoreWeave's rating to "strong buy," optimistic that its capital expenditure plan could support the future revenue recognition of its backlog of orders. With the massive spending by OpenAI, its backlog of orders subsequently surged nearly four times to $55 billion. The management expected revenue of approximately $5.3 billion by 2025, while the market consensus for 2026 revenue was $12.14 billion. The situation changed drastically in the third quarter. Due to issues with a data center supplier, construction delays led to the revenue that was scheduled to be recognized in the third quarter being pushed back to the first quarter of the following year. The company's GPU online capacity target was lowered from "over 900 megawatts" to 850 megawatts, and the 2025 revenue expectation was also reduced from $5.3 billion to $5.1 billion. Dey believes the fundamental reason lies in the management's excessive focus on acquiring CoreScientific, leading to a loss of focus on executing customer commitments. This acquisition was announced at the beginning of the third quarter but was rejected by shareholders at the end of the quarter. The operational risks generated in this process ultimately led to construction delays, resulting in a revenue gap of approximately $200 million this year. To mitigate the impact, the CEO stated that affected customers are obtaining capacity from other data centers, with no customer loss, just a one-quarter delay in revenue recognition. However, market sentiment remains pessimistic, and even though the company expects capital expenditures in 2026 to be "far beyond" double those of 2025 (i.e., over $24 billion), the market remains skeptical. Pricing for 2026 revenue has now fallen to $12 billion. External challenges exacerbate the situation. The "red alert" from OpenAI has deepened market concerns about whether CoreWeave can confirm its backlog of $22.4 billion in orders. This fear-driven situation is not the first of its kind, as in... (remaining text cut off)