CoreWeave Just Landed a Deal With Perplexity. Why This Neocloud Stock Could Be the Comeback Play of 2026.

CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) splashed onto the scene about a year ago when it launched its initial public offering -- and the stock went on to soar more than 300% over just a few months. The reason for the investing excitement? CoreWeave was offering something many tech giants greatly needed: capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.

AI has been a huge area of focus for companies over the past few years as it is seen as the key to increased efficiency, cost savings, and innovation. And all of this should produce earnings growth and positive share price performance. Companies such as CoreWeave -- offering AI products and services to customers -- have been early to reap the rewards. In recent quarters, CoreWeave's revenue has jumped in the triple digits.

But the performance of AI stocks, including CoreWeave, has lost momentum over the past few months. Investors have worried about a potential slowdown in AI spending, and other pressures, such as the war in Iran, have weighed on demand for growth stocks. CoreWeave stock has dropped about 50% from its high.

Still, evidence from CoreWeave shows its revenue opportunities continue to soar. In fact, it just landed a deal with AI-driven search engine Perplexity. Let's find out why CoreWeave could be the comeback play of 2026.

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The growing neocloud market

So, first, a bit more detail about the CoreWeave story. CoreWeave operates in the "neocloud" space, offering graphics processing units (GPUs) for rent to customers as needed. This has become a big business, with Synergy Research Group forecasting that neocloud market revenue will reach $180 billion in 2030 -- that represents average annual growth of 69%.

These services have become popular because they help customers save time, gain flexibility, and likely maintain lower costs too. Instead of investing in their own GPUs, these companies can turn to a player like CoreWeave and rent just what they need for a specific period of time. GPUs are the AI chips driving key tasks, such as the one often considered as the next growth driver for AI: inference. This is the "thinking" an AI model goes through while solving a problem, and for it to happen, powerful compute is needed.

CoreWeave stands out as it has a particularly close relationship with AI chip powerhouse Nvidia. The company has been the first to make Nvidia's latest systems generally available to customers, and Nvidia is a big investor in CoreWeave -- the company makes up 27% of Nvidia's stock portfolio.

The fastest cloud to reach $5 billion

Meanwhile, customers have been flocking to CoreWeave quarter after quarter, and have helped the company to become the fastest cloud to reach $5 billion in annual revenue. And just recently, Perplexity turned to CoreWeave for services. As part of the multi-year deal, CoreWeave will support Perplexity's inference workloads on Nvidia GB200 NVL72-powered clusters.

As mentioned, CoreWeave has faced various headwinds in recent months. Some have been indirect, such as geopolitical concerns, while others are directly related to AI companies, such as concerns about a possible decrease in AI spending. On top of this, some investors have worried about CoreWeave's increasing debt levels -- the company has been taking on more debt to build out infrastructure to serve demand. All of these points represent risk, meaning the stock may not be the best bet for a cautious investor.

But investors who don't mind some risk may feel differently. It's important to note that a broad range of AI companies -- from chip designers to cloud players -- have spoken of ongoing high demand for compute. And many companies have started to apply AI to their real-world problems, suggesting they will need compute to keep this going. Customers may appreciate the flexibility that CoreWeave offers -- and the rapid access to Nvidia's top GPUs. All of this means that, after CoreWeave's decline, it may now be the comeback play of 2026.

Adria Cimino has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.