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Just For You CoreWeave Just Landed a Deal That Signals Where AI Is HeadedAuthored by Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Originally Published: 3/5/2026. 
Key Points - CoreWeave's specialized, high-performance infrastructure provides a crucial advantage in the demanding and rapidly growing AI inference market.
- A deep technical partnership with NVIDIA, which includes a coveted industry certification, validates CoreWeave's platform as a world-class solution.
- An extensive backlog of long-term contracts provides significant visibility into future revenue and underpins the company's strategic growth investments.
- Special Report: Elon Musk: This Could Turn $100 into $100,000
A recent partnership sent a clear signal through the market about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), and it has little to do with the training hype dominating headlines. When specialized cloud provider CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) saw its stock climb on news of a multi-year deal with AI-native search company Perplexity, it was more than just another customer win. The Wall Street Journal is asking whether a stock market crash is coming. Research from Weiss Ratings suggests the first half of 2026 could be very tough for certain stocks as a radical shift hits the market. Some of America's most popular names could take serious damage. Analysts have identified five stocks you should consider avoiding before this event plays out. If these are in your portfolio, you'll want to review your positions carefully. See the five stocks to avoid and learn what's driving this shift. While Wall Street has focused on CoreWeave's aggressive spending, this alliance may have just shown investors where the real, long-term revenue in the AI revolution will be generated. A Bellwether Deal for the New AI Battleground Perplexity, a company built around delivering fast, accurate AI-powered answers, has entrusted its critical workload to CoreWeave. The contract is specifically to power its AI inference operations, and that distinction matters: it highlights a fundamental shift in the AI market. For several years the narrative centered on training—the computationally massive process of teaching a model on vast datasets. Training is essential but periodic. Inference is different: it's the continuous, high-volume work of using a trained model to generate answers and predictions for millions of users in real time. If training is building a library, inference is everyone checking out books simultaneously, 24/7. Inference workloads are exceptionally demanding. They require consistently low latency because users expect immediate responses; any delay degrades the experience. If training is a marathon, inference is a never-ending series of sprints. The decision by a performance-obsessed AI leader like Perplexity to choose CoreWeave over established, general-purpose cloud giants is a bellwether. It signals that for demanding, revenue-generating AI applications, specialized infrastructure is not just a preference — it's a necessity. Built Different: CoreWeave's Performance Edge CoreWeave's wins in inference come from a clear architectural advantage. The company offers a GPU-first, bare-metal cloud purpose-built for AI, giving clients direct access to underlying hardware and minimizing software layers and operational overhead that can add latency. This specialization creates a measurable performance gap versus legacy hyperscalers, whose platforms are designed to be generalists. For investors, the difference can be understood simply: - CoreWeave (Specialized): The Formula 1 car of the cloud world—engineered to deliver maximum speed and performance for demanding AI workloads.
- Legacy Hyperscalers (Generalized): The SUV—versatile and reliable for many tasks like web hosting and storage, but not optimized for the high-octane racetrack of AI inference.
This performance edge isn't just marketing; it's validated by the industry's marquee name: NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA). NVIDIA's deep partnership with CoreWeave extends beyond its recent $2 billion investment. It is a meaningful technical endorsement. CoreWeave has earned NVIDIA's Exemplar Cloud status, a certification indicating its platform meets high standards for performance, reliability, and security. For enterprise customers, that stamp of approval reduces execution risk and assures they're running workloads on a world-class platform. The alignment also gives CoreWeave early access to next-generation technology like the Rubin platform, helping maintain its competitive moat. Investing in Certainty, Not Speculation Concerns about CoreWeave's aggressive spending and current net losses are understandable. The company has guided for $30 to $35 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, which raises questions about near-term profitability. But viewed in context, much of this spending is not speculative; it's a calculated build-out to fulfill a massive, pre-sold pipeline of demand. Perhaps the most convincing counterpoint is the company's contractually secured revenue backlog of $66.8 billion. CoreWeave is not erecting data centers on a hope; it is manufacturing capacity that has already been purchased through long-term contracts. The quality of this backlog further reduces financial risk: the average contract length has increased to roughly five years, providing strong visibility into future cash flows. The company's ability to raise over $18 billion in capital in 2025 while lowering its average cost of borrowing also demonstrates institutional confidence in the strategy. That aggressive investment is what helps secure CoreWeave's leadership position for years to come. What the Market May Be Missing This strategic positioning in the inference market should inform CoreWeave's valuation potential. While the stock currently trades around $79.50, the consensus price target from 30 Wall Street analysts is $124.34, implying meaningful upside from current levels. That gap suggests the market may still be pricing the company based on the heavy costs of its current build-out phase rather than the recurring revenue its inference infrastructure is set to generate. CoreWeave's own projections, backed by its backlog, target an exit to 2026 with an annualized revenue run rate of $17 to $19 billion—more than doubling its revenue base in a single year. As the company converts backlog into revenue and signs more high-profile inference customers like Perplexity, that valuation gap could begin to close. An Essential Cloud for the Inference Era For investors assessing the evolving AI landscape, the key may be to look past the training headlines and focus on the less-discussed but potentially larger inference market. Companies building the high-performance infrastructure required for this phase are positioning themselves for durable, long-term growth. The deal between CoreWeave and Perplexity is strong evidence that CoreWeave has established itself as a leading contender in this new era.
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