CoreWeave (CRWV, Financial) has agreed to acquire Core Scientific (CORZ, Financial) in an all-stock deal valued at around $9 billion, aiming to dramatically scale its AI and high-performance computing (HPC) capacity. The offer puts Core Scientific shares at $20.40 — a 66% premium to their June 25 close — yet the market reaction has been anything but smooth. Shares of Core Scientific slid 13.4% at 11.22am today, after the announcement, reflecting skepticism despite the rich headline price. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2025, with CoreWeave projecting that Core Scientific shareholders will hold less than 10% of the combined company once it's done.
This isn't CoreWeave's first move on Core Scientific. The cloud firm previously made a $1 billion bid and locked in 12-year contracts for 200 megawatts of infrastructure. But this time, the prize is even bigger: about 1.3 gigawatts of power capacity — roughly equivalent to the output of a nuclear plant. That scale is critical for CoreWeave's AI ambitions. After emerging from bankruptcy early last year, Core Scientific pivoted away from Bitcoin mining toward AI data hosting — a shift that made it one of CoreWeave's key infrastructure partners.
The backdrop? An AI infrastructure race that's heating up fast. Just last week, Oracle and OpenAI inked a 4.5-gigawatt deal for future data centers. CoreWeave isn't sitting still. CEO Michael Intrator said this acquisition could accelerate the company's ability to deploy AI and HPC workloads at scale. While CoreWeave's stock dropped 6% on the news, its 2030 junk bonds ticked higher — a possible sign that debt markets are warming to its longer-term strategy.
