MW Here's what CoreWeave needs to prove with its earnings for the stock to soar further

By Christine Ji

The AI-infrastructure darling has seen its stock climb 40% this year. CoreWeave's fourth-quarter earnings report will determine whether the momentum continues.

CoreWeave's recently expanded partnership with Nvidia gives the company $2 billion in fresh capital.

As CoreWeave prepares to report fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, investors will be looking for proof that the leading artificial-intelligence infrastructure provider is growing its business and keeping up with demand.

The key indicator will be CoreWeave's (CRWV) remaining performance obligations, or future cloud revenues not yet recognized. Last quarter, the company reported over $55 billion of RPO. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill expects a modest step-up to around $60 to $65 billion of RPO for the fourth quarter, with a more meaningful acceleration in the first half of 2026. He reiterated his buy rating in a note earlier this week.

CoreWeave is expected to report $1.55 billion in revenue and a net loss of $342 million for the fourth quarter, according to FactSet consensus estimates. Total revenue for 2025 is expected to come out to $5.11 billion.

Beyond growing RPO, CoreWeave faces elevated pressure to prove that it can turn its cloud backlog into revenue. Last quarter, the company reported above-consensus revenue and cloud backlog, but the stock fell on news of a data-center delay. As a result, CoreWeave trimmed its full-year 2025 guidance to between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion, down from the $5.15 billion to $5.25 billion projected previously.

Given that recent history, "investors will look for clean proof points" when CoreWeave reports earnings on Thursday, such as the delivery of over 850 megawatts of capacity and a revenue beat, Thill wrote.

The company's financing plans will also be subject to scrutiny, although CoreWeave has been making strides to secure new funding and lower its interest payments. Shares of CoreWeave are up over 40% so far this year, partly driven by de-risking actions taken by the company.

Also read: CoreWeave's stock soars. Why Nvidia's fresh bet on the company is so significant.

Last month Nvidia (NVDA) announced a partnership expansion with CoreWeave that features a $2 billion equity investment and a strategic collaboration on CoreWeave's proprietary software offerings. Critically, the partnership gives CoreWeave a fresh source of capital to fund its data-center buildout and lower the company's cost of capital.

Nvidia "will act as a high-investment-grade counterparty to help [CoreWeave] procure land, power and data-center shells more competitively with hyperscalers," Citi analyst Tyler Radke wrote in a note following the announcement.

"While very early, the announcement highlights [CoreWeave's] software differentiation and could be a long-term tailwind to margins," he said.

Thill called the partnership a "force multiplier" that "improves access to capital, accelerates capacity buildouts, and reinforces [CoreWeave's] strategic positioning."

Shares of CoreWeave dropped last Friday on news of a report saying that alternative-asset manager Blue Owl (OWL) was having difficulty selling CoreWeave data-center debt instruments to lenders, even with the investment-grade backing of Nvidia. Blue Owl and CoreWeave have both denied the accuracy of the report.

Read more: CoreWeave's stock drops. Why a $4 billion Blue Owl funding snag has investors on edge.

-Christine Ji

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February 25, 2026 10:50 ET (15:50 GMT)

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