Better Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock: CoreWeave vs. Nebius
Key Takeaways
Investors considering which of these two stocks to buy right now have an easy choice to make.
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6 min read
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investment
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July 26, 2025
09:37 PM
The Motley Fool
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The analysis indicates that I find it compelling that CoreWeave (CRWV -3. 50%) and Nebius Group (NBIS -0, in light of current trends. 90%) have witnessed a rapid jump in their prices this year
Investors have been buying these stocks hand over fist because they are benefiting big time from the growing demand for cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure
On the other hand, CoreWeave stock has shot up a remarkable 224% in just four months since going public in March this year, and Nebius has clocked healthy gains of 84% so far in 2025
Moreover, Both companies are in the of renting out data centers powered by graphics cessing units (GPUs), which their customers use to train AI models, build applications, and scale up those applications in the cloud
Additionally, But if you have to choose one of these two stocks for your portfolio right now, which one should it be
Image source: Getty Images, in light of current trends
Furthermore, The case for CoreWeave CoreWeave's rally since its initial public offering (IPO) can be attributed to the terrific growth in the company's revenue and backlog
Moreover, Its top line jumped by more than fivefold in the first quarter to $981 million, and it's on track to sustain its outstanding momentum
That's because the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service market in which CoreWeave operates is growing at an incredible pace
On the other hand, Grand View Re estimates that the cloud AI market could generate $650 billion in annual revenue in 2030, nearly 7. 5 times the size of this market last year
CoreWeave is capitalizing on this lucrative opportunity by offering access to the top-of-the-line GPUs from Nvidia along with server cessors from AMD
The analysis reveals company claims that customers using its cloud AI infrastructure enjoy significant cost and performance advantages
It says its infrastructure is "purpose-built for compute-intensive workloads, and everything from our servers to our storage and networking solutions are designed to der best-in-class performance
Additionally, " The demand for the company's AI infrastructure is outpacing supply, so it is focused on scaling up its capacity quickly to satisfy the strong demand, amid market uncertainty
Management said on its May earnings conference call that it has raised over $21 billion to expand infrastructure and data center capacity (something worth watching)
The company recently announced the upcoming $9 billion acquisition of Core Scientific, which could bring another 1 gigawatt (GW) of data center capacity and help lower its costs from its existing leases with Core Scientific
CoreWeave forecasts a reduction of over $10 billion in future lease liabilities once the acquisition is complete, ed by annual run-rate cost savings of $500 million by the end of 2027
On the other hand, Before this acquisition was announced, CoreWeave was jecting a fourfold increase in its data center capacity under its existing capacity contracts
This focus on enhancing data center capacity should pave the way for outstanding growth for CoreWeave since it was sitting on a revenue backlog of almost $26 billion at the end of the first quarter -- 63% higher from the year-ago period
As such, analysts are expecting its revenue to continue increasing at a strong pace
Nevertheless, CRWV Revenue Estimates for Current Fiscal Year; data by YCharts
CoreWeave is ly to remain a top AI stock since it is serving a fast-growing market and is aggressively to capture a of it
The data indicates that case for Nebius Nebius shot up impressively last week after Goldman Sachs put a 12-month price target of $68 on the stock, in today's market environment
What the re reveals is investment bank said that the company's full-stack AI infrastructure, which includes hardware and software tools, allows it to make the most of the impressive opportunity in this space
Goldman's price target calls for a 31% jump in the stock in the coming year
On the other hand, Moreover, And there is a good chance that the company could surpass that given its 385% revenue jump year over year in the first quarter to $55 million
At the same time, More importantly, the growth in its annual revenue run rate was much faster at 684% year over year to $249 million
That imved to $310 million in April, and the company forecasts an annual revenue run rate of $750 million to $1 billion by the end of the year, driven by the new data center capacity it is planning
In a letter to holders, CEO Arkady Volozh said: We're rapidly expanding our capacity foot, in today's market environment
Meanwhile, In just three quarters, we've gone from one location in Finland to five locations across Europe, the U. , and now the Middle East
We're actively exploring new sites in the U
Moreover, And around the world, and we expect to vide more news on this soon
Un CoreWeave, Nebius vides more than just AI hardware infrastructure to customers
Its cloud platform also offers developer tools and services that customers can employ to refine their AI models, run inference tasks, and develop custom solutions
Nevertheless, Meanwhile, This's why Goldman believes that Nebius could be a leader in the cloud AI space (noteworthy indeed), in light of current trends
Nevertheless, On the other hand, The company's balance sheet -- with $1. 45 billion in cash and $188 million in debt -- allows it to continue putting more money into its cloud infrastructure
The analysis reveals explains the healthy top-line growth it is jected to der
NBIS Revenue Estimates for Current Fiscal Year; data by YCharts (which is quite significant)
Additionally, Additionally, So, CoreWeave, Nebius is ly to remain a high-growth company, given the current landscape
But is it a better buy than its larger peer at this point, amid market uncertainty
The verdict Both CoreWeave and Nebius are growing at healthy rates and are expected to sustain that
On the other hand, So, investors should look at their valuations to decide which is the better buy
The two companies aren't fitable right now considering their aggressive infrastructure investments, so we need to compare their price-to-sales ratios (P/S)
Furthermore, At the same time, NBIS PS Ratio (Forward); data by YCharts
Nebius stock is way more expensive than CoreWeave when comparing sales multiples, indicating that the latter is a better buy even after its strong rally this year
Moreover, CoreWeave is growing faster, has a huge backlog, and is sitting on ample resources to continue expanding its data center foot, making it the easy choice for investors considering which of these two AI stocks is worth adding to their portfolios right now.
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