CoreWeave

CoreWeave is a GPU cloud provider that has become one of the most important AI infrastructure companies. Originally a cryptocurrency mining operation, CoreWeave pivoted to offering specialized NVIDIA GPU compute for AI training, inference, and rendering workloads — becoming a critical alternative to hyperscale cloud providers for AI companies that need massive, dedicated GPU capacity.

The GPU Cloud

CoreWeave's infrastructure is purpose-built for GPU workloads. Unlike general-purpose clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP) that optimize for a mix of compute types, CoreWeave focuses exclusively on GPU-accelerated computing — offering bare-metal NVIDIA H100, A100, and L40S instances with high-bandwidth networking optimized for distributed AI training. This specialization allows CoreWeave to deliver GPU compute at lower cost and higher performance than hyperscalers for AI-specific workloads.

Compute Capital Markets

CoreWeave exemplifies the emergence of compute as a capital asset class. The company has raised billions in debt financing secured against its GPU fleet — effectively treating GPUs as revenue-generating capital equipment, similar to how real estate investment trusts finance buildings. This financial innovation, which Jon Radoff has analyzed in his work on compute capital markets, is creating a new category of infrastructure finance where access to AI compute becomes a tradeable, financeable asset.

Powering the AI Labs

CoreWeave counts several major AI labs among its customers, providing the raw computational power needed to train frontier large language models. As AI model training costs reach hundreds of millions of dollars per run, specialized GPU cloud providers like CoreWeave are essential infrastructure — the power plants of the AI era.