Artificial intelligence (AI) cloud provider CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) ended June with a revenue backlog of $104.2 billion. That figure was up 246% year over year.
My prediction is that the backlog passes $150 billion before 2028.
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That may sound aggressive for a growth stock trading at about $100 as of this writing, about 35% below its 52-week high of $153.20.
But the market's doubts are mostly about what delivering the contracted revenue will cost. The forecast here is about the demand itself. And the growth it requires is more modest than it sounds.
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From $30 billion to $104 billion
The backlog stood at $30.1 billion at the end of June 2025. It reached $66.8 billion by year-end, jumped to $99.4 billion at the end of March, and hit $104.2 billion at the end of June. The direction has been one way, but the pace swings from quarter to quarter.
And the customers are committing for years at a time. Social media companyMeta Platforms expanded its agreement with CoreWeave in March by about $21 billion, covering capacity through December 2032. Jane Street, a trading firm, committed about $6 billion in a deal announced in April. CoreWeave also announced a multi-year agreement with AI developer Anthropic that month.
The contracts stretch a long way out. Of the $103.7 billion of remaining performance obligations inside the backlog, only 41% is expected to convert to revenue within 24 months. The rest stretches across the following four and a half years.
However, these aren't commitments sitting idle. Management said on the second-quarter earnings call that more than half of the backlog is attached to contracts where customer delivery has already commenced.
What does $150 billion require?
From $104.2 billion, passing $150 billion means adding about $46 billion, net, across the six quarters between the end of June and the end of 2027. That works out to growth of about 28% a year, or about 6% a quarter.
That would be a dramatic slowdown. After all, the backlog just grew 246% in a year (about $74 billion of net additions), so the forecast needs about a ninth of that growth rate for a year and a half.
The additions are net of what CoreWeave delivers, though, and deliveries are ramping fast. The company recognized about $2.6 billion of revenue in the second quarter, up 112% year over year. And management expects to exit 2026 at an annualized revenue run rate of $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion. Every dollar delivered under contract comes out of the backlog. By next year, new signings will need to outrun more than $4.5 billion a quarter of deliveries before the total grows at all.
But more than half of the required $46 billion arguably arrived before the window's first quarter even closed. CoreWeave added more than $25 billion of net new customer commitments in the early weeks of the third quarter, and none of it is in the June figure yet. Hudson River Trading, another trading firm, announced a multi-year agreement of its own in August, too.
The backlog moves in lumps
The second quarter shows how uneven the reported number can be. Between the end of March and the end of June, the backlog grew by just $4.8 billion, net -- a small step for a quarter in which the Meta, Jane Street, and Anthropic announcements all landed. An announced agreement isn't always a new one, though. Meta's deal dates to March, and revenue delivered under contract comes out of the figure every quarter.
Concentration is the other reason to expect lumps. Three customers accounted for 72% of second-quarter revenue, and CoreWeave expects that concentration to continue. A few counterparties decide when the next tens of billions arrive -- and if one pauses, the forecast could run quarters late.
Of course, a signed commitment isn't delivered revenue. The contracts are subject to delivery and availability requirements, meaning CoreWeave has to secure data center space and bring the cloud computing capacity online on schedule.
That build-out is the expensive part. Net interest expense ran $640 million in the second quarter alone. The backlog is the reason all of that borrowing can make sense, but it doesn't pay for any of it until the revenue is delivered.
Still, this prediction is about demand for AI computing, and demand is the part CoreWeave keeps proving. Even if signings slow to a fraction of the past year's pace, $150 billion looks reachable well before the end of 2027.
I think the backlog clears the mark with room to spare.
Whether the stock is worth buying while that happens is a different question. A bigger backlog alone doesn't answer it.
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Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
