CRWV vs NBIS vs IREN: Which Neocloud Operator To Bet On Right Now?

• Neoclouds are a newer breed of cloud providers that complement hyperscalers by extending capacity.
• AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud reported expectation-beating growth, signaling robust demand.
• According to a recent Stocktwits poll, NBIS has emerged as a retail favorite.

​​The artificial intelligence (AI) trade has moved past Nvidia, Microsoft or the other hyperscalers. A new crop of specialized cloud providers is becoming an increasingly important part of the buildout, and three names stand out here: CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN.

CoreWeave has doubled its revenue year over year in each of the last seven quarters, while IREN Ltd.’s growth has stayed above 350% in the last six. Barring memory chipmakers, such growth rates are hard to find anywhere else in the market.

An incredible boom in AI development and use has supercharged demand for cloud capacity, driving strong growth at hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, as well as neocloud operators that have emerged as formidable sources of on-demand computing capacity.

Various analyst projections suggest demand is unlikely to relent for at least the next couple of years, beyond which it is difficult to estimate given the rapidly evolving nature of AI technology. As such, cloud companies are adding more data centers and compute capacity at a rapid pace.

CRWV, NBIS, IREN Are Growing At AI-Speed

With CoreWeave and Nebius having just reported their quarterly results — and IREN due to report next week — a trend is emerging. Costs are surging alongside sales.

CoreWeave, the biggest neocloud firm, as well as Nebius and IREN, are loss-making on a net basis. That’s understandable given the ongoing investment and expansion cycle, but investors have begun watching the pace of cost increases more closely.

CoreWeave's cost of sales rose 180% last quarter, matching the pace of the preceding two quarters. COGS at Nebius rose 344%, its highest pace on record. 
 

The Catch: AI Cloud Growth Is Expensive 

Since going public at the end of March of last year, CoreWeave had recorded $1.64 billion in net losses. For the second quarter, it reported a net loss of $626 million, less than analysts’ expectations of $677 million, bringing the total to nearly $2.3 billion.

Nebius and IREN are newer players on the block, having recently pivoted their businesses toward cloud computing, and are currently building capacity to fulfill the first major orders they have secured. For them, the key yardstick is how quickly and efficiently they can deliver on those commitments.

Nebius has signed a five-year, $12 billion AI infrastructure deal with Meta Platforms, while IREN has secured a $9.7 billion, five-year GPU cloud contract with Microsoft. Both are among the biggest commitments underpinning their aggressive capacity buildouts.

CRWV, NBIS, IREN: Massive Capacity Expansion

CoreWeave currently has about 1.5 GW of active data-center power and is targeting more than 8 GW by 2030.

Its expansion includes a 250-MW greenfield campus in Kenilworth, New Jersey, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania site planned initially at 100 MW with potential to reach 300 MW, and additional capacity through colocation, including two Stockholm campuses. CoreWeave also said it had eight data centers under construction or brought online during Q2, taking its global footprint to roughly 51 facilities.

Nebius is in a much earlier but faster expansion phase. The company is targeting 800 MW to 1 GW of connected power by the end of 2026, while IREN has grown from about 3 MW of self-built AI Cloud capacity to 480 MW planned for 2026, with 1.2 GW targeted for 2027. 

Nebius is building large campuses in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Finland and the UK, while IREN’s main expansion is at Childress, Texas, followed by Sweetwater and Kiowa, with a new 1.6-GW Oklahoma campus and 490 MW of secured power in Spain adding to its longer-term pipeline.

CRWV, NBIS, IREN: What Wall Street And Retail Traders Are Saying 

Owing to the massive demand for cloud, neocloud stocks have run sharply. Nebius is up a staggering 218% year, while CoreWeave and IREN have gained 44% and 14% in this period respectively. Given the moves, analysts see the least future upside for NBIS and the highest for IREN.

Source: Koyfin

Nebius has emerged as the favourite among retail traders. In a recent poll on Stocktwits, 46% said they were most bullish on NBIS among the group of neocloud stocks, while 20% named IREN as their pick.
 

The watcher count for NBIS has risen more than 25% over the past three months, outpacing gains of 14.3% for CoreWeave and 15.3% for IREN. “NBIS is now the gamestop of AI,” a trader remarked.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

Read Next: CBRS Stock Pops 15% As Wedbush Flags 'Progression' In $20B OpenAI Deal, GPT-5.6 Sol Ultrafast Boost