Nvidia-backed CoreWeave secures $650 million credit line | Wilnesh News

CoreWeave, a NVIDIA– Backed an artificial intelligence startup that leases chips to other companies, the company announced Friday it secured a new $650 million credit line to expand its business and data center portfolio.

The cloud infrastructure company said it has raised $12.7 billion from equity and debt investors in the past 18 months, including a $1.1 billion round in May that valued it at $19 billion.

By the end of 2024, CoreWeave plans to have 28 data centers in the United States and overseas, including Austin, Texas, Chicago, Las Vegas and London, with plans to build 10 more data centers in 2025. Microsoft French artificial intelligence startup Mistral has a graphics processing unit (GPU).

As of last year, CoreWeave was reportedly US$2 billion Contracted revenue through 2024.

Building and training artificial intelligence models is notoriously expensive, requiring thousands of specialized chips, which until now have mostly come from Nvidia. Most, if not all, of the tech companies that dominate artificial intelligence spend hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars on Nvidia chips to make their models work. In addition to developing chips, Nvidia has taken stakes in emerging artificial intelligence companies such as CoreWeave, in part to ensure widespread deployment of its technology.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley CoreWeave announced the funding on Friday, with investors including Barclays, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, Mizuho, ​​Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Wells Fargo.

“This credit facility provides additional liquidity to accelerate our growth strategy and capitalize on new opportunities in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence,” CoreWeave co-founder and CEO Mike Intrator said in the release.

CoreWeave’s new credit line is part of a broader trend as banks prepare for an artificial intelligence gold rush ahead of many potential IPOs in the space. The generative artificial intelligence market is poised for growth Up to $1 trillion According to one estimate, revenue will increase by 2032.

Last week, OpenAI secured a $4 billion revolving credit facility, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. The news comes shortly after OpenAI completed its latest round of financing at a valuation of $157 billion.

Many banks have extended credit lines to OpenAI. The startup has the option of adding an additional $2 billion.

CoreWeave declined to provide details about the interest rates it pays or the schedule of its credit facilities.