An up-and-coming company specializing in the hottest technology area decides to go public. It's teamed up with the most prominent player in that area. The company's initial public offering (IPO) is set to be the biggest for a tech stock in years. And then... pfffft.
That's the story for artificial intelligence (AI) hyperscaler CoreWeave (CRWV +2.09%). Despite backing by AI giant Nvidia (NVDA 0.46%), its recent IPO was lackluster at best. Does this signal that the AI stock boom is officially over?
NASDAQ: CRWV
Key Data Points
A decidedly unspectacular IPO
Expectations were high when CoreWeave filed for its IPO on March 3. The company's revenue soared 737% year over year in 2024. It boasted major customers, including IBM, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft.
CoreWeave enjoys an especially close relationship with Nvidia. It uses Nvidia's GPUs. CoreWeave's software and infrastructure also help maximize the GPUs' performance. Nvidia wasn't just a partner, though: Before the IPO, the chipmaker owned roughly 1% of CoreWeave's voting power.
Nvidia also came to the rescue when CoreWeave's IPO nearly fell apart. The small company planned to sell its shares from $47 to $55. However, not enough investors were interested in buying at that price range. Fortunately for CoreWeave, Nvidia offered to buy shares at $40 so the IPO could move forward.
So what happened with the IPO? CoreWeave stock opened at the $40-per-share price Nvidia paid. And that's the same price the new AI stock closed on its first day of trading. It's now even lower.
An official end of the AI boom?
Contrast CoreWeave's experience with Tempus AI's IPO in June 2024, less than a year ago. The AI-powered healthcare diagnostics company was also backed by an AI giant -- in this case, Google parent Alphabet. However, Tempus AI priced its shares at the upper end of its initial IPO range. Its stock jumped almost 9% on the first day of trading and are roughly 20% higher now despite some huge up-and-down swings.
Is the theme song for AI stocks now the B.B. King classic "The Thrill Is Gone"? That might seem to be the case. CoreWeave's lackluster IPO that nearly flopped without Nvidia's intervention could indicate that the infatuation with AI stocks is now over.
Nvidia itself could provide another big hint that the AI boom has officially ended. The company has been the superstar of this boom from the beginning, skyrocketing more than tenfold between Oct. 1, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2024. But Nvidia's share price has now tumbled around 27% below its all-time high.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Remember Mark Twain
In 1897, several newspapers reported that Mark Twain was seriously ill and possibly about to die in poverty. When contacted about the story, the well-known author was said to have replied, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
I think we should remember Mark Twain when considering whether the AI stock boom is really over. Sure, CoreWeave's IPO wasn't a huge success. Yes, many AI stocks have fallen quite a bit. That doesn't mean, though, that the AI stock boom is kaput. I suspect we're merely seeing a pause that will eventually resume.
This pause, by the way, doesn't seem to be the result of serious worries about the demand for AI. Instead, the entire stock market is highly volatile primarily because of uncertainty about the impact of the Trump administration's tariffs.
I'm not suggesting that investors jump on the CoreWeave bandwagon, if there is one. This is a stock that trades at a high price-to-sales ratio of nearly 10. The company also remains unprofitable.
However, I don't think we've yet seen the full impact of how AI will revolutionize the world around us. Companies with the best AI products will have tremendous growth opportunities over the next decade and beyond. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the end of the AI stock boom are greatly exaggerated.
