CoreWeave Just Signed a $21 Billion Deal With Meta. Here's Why This Stock Might Finally Be Turning the Corner.

It's been a disappointing past few months for CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) stockholders. Although momentum was bullish right out of the gate following its March 2025 public offering, shares haven't made any net progress since the middle of last year.

Blame unfortunate timing, mostly. That's roughly when worry about most artificial intelligence (AI) stocks' steep valuations started to materialize. Given that this AI data center owner/operator is still in the red, the market was doubly pessimistic on CoreWeave. It's surprising that the shares held up as well as they did.

Or, perhaps investors sensed what was coming. Earlier this month, CoreWeave announced an agreement with Facebook parent Meta Platforms to provide it with $21 billion worth of AI cloud capacity through 2032. That's an expansion of a previous deal to supply the social networking giant with $14 billion worth of artificial intelligence cloud infrastructure.

For perspective, CoreWeave did $5.1 billion worth of business last year, well up from 2024's top line of $1.9 billion, although its net loss grew to $1.2 billion due to heavy spending on AI infrastructure.

And it's not just Meta looking to expand its artificial intelligence capacity. The very next day, AI outfit Anthropic tapped CoreWeave made an announcement as well. Although the monetary details of this deal weren't disclosed, it is a multi-year agreement with one of the increasingly important names in the artificial intelligence business.

These announcements are a not-so-subtle sign that CoreWeave and its stock have indeed turned the corner.

Finally gelling

It was initially tough to see, but it's become clear that no company in the artificial intelligence business is getting paid today for the AI investments they're making today. Consulting company Deloitte recently suggested it can typically take between two and four years to see a satisfactory return on corporate investments in artificial intelligence, jibing with numbers from CapGemini. This dynamic not only applies directly to CoreWeave, but indirectly applies to its current and future customers, keeping some of them cautious until they're sure an investment has merit.

As time marches on, though, the industry is getting a feel for what works, what doesn't, what's worth it, and what isn't.

Image source: Getty Images.

Perhaps more important to interested investors, now that we're nearing the two-year mark for a swell of serious investments in AI infrastructure, we're seeing respectable fiscal returns despite the headwind of pessimism currently working against the industry's stocks. As a result, analysts expect CoreWeave's top line to more than double this year, with comparable dollar-based sales growth in the cards for next year as well as in 2028, when the company's projected revenue of nearly $34 billion should push it into profitable territory.

The stock's still quite expensive, to be sure, and the company is adding an uncomfortable $1.75 billion in debt to its balance sheet to fund continued expansion. As Macquarie analyst Paul Golding explained of his recent upgrade of CoreWeave stock, however, the "recent announcements with Meta and Anthropic [suggest] its ecosystem role is becoming structural," driven by all the high-performance specialty solutions that CoreWeave offers. Or in CoreWeave's words, it's "the essential cloud for AI."

However it's voiced, investors are now seeing these same core competencies that the rest of the AI industry is. That's why this stock's turning the corner now.

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.