CoreWeave’s Freakout Hurt Constellation and NRG Stocks. It Shouldn’t Have.

An NRG generating station in Houston. Shares of that company and other power providers were caught, perhaps indiscriminately, in this week’s AI selloff. (Antranik Tavitian/Bloomberg)

Key Points

• Shares of NRG, Constellation Energy, and Vistra Energy fell this week due to worries surrounding AI data center player CoreWeave.
• CoreWeave faced a stock selloff triggered by a social media post highlighting concerns about its $35 billion in debt.
• Major electricity providers look insulated from CoreWeave’s problems, and existing utilities could benefit if upstarts falter.

CoreWeave has become a problem for the entire market, and for power stocks in particular. The selloff in shares of NRG , Constellation Energy, and Vistra Energy looks overdone.

While it is true that CoreWeave is becoming an important electricity consumer for its AI data centers, those electricity-providers look insulated from CoreWeave’s problems. All three fell this week on artificial intelligence worries, though NRG and Vistra rebounded Thursday afternoon.

CoreWeave is a quirky player in the AI universe—and its woes have caused a ripple effect that goes well beyond its actual effect on the AI ecosystem. It’s a former cryptocurrency miner that transitioned into an AI data center player, helped by the fact that it already had access to power. It has won backing from Nvidia, and sells space to high-profile customers like Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI.

As for its power contracts, its closest partners are other companies with deep roots in crypto mining, including Galaxy Digital, Core Scientific and Applied Digital. CoreWeave makes deals with them to lease space in grid-connected data centers that it can then sell to Big Tech companies.

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CoreWeave is a small player whose actions are unlikely to move power prices. CoreWeave’s data centers were drawing about 1.5 gigawatts worth of power as of the end of June, or as much as two midsize nuclear reactors. It has signed contracts to nearly triple its capacity.

The risk to CoreWeave and its partners is that CoreWeave buckles under its liabilities, which included $35 billion in debt and $16 billion in lease liabilities as of the end of June. The company will need to ramp up earnings fast to handle those obligations: It posted a $49 million operating loss in its latest quarter. The latest selloff in CoreWeave stock was triggered by a social media post highlighting increasing concerns about the debt.

Any dent in CoreWeave’s growth story tends to affect the power industry because it implies the country will need less power than initially expected. But CoreWeave’s problems shouldn’t have much impact on the country’s major electricity providers. In fact, existing utilities and other power plant owners could benefit if upstarts like CoreWeave begin to falter.

Constellation, for instance, operates more than 55 gigawatts worth of power plant capacity. Earlier this month, it signed long-term deals with Alphabet for 3.6 gigawatts of power.

If CoreWeave can’t supply AI’s accelerating electricity demand, the old stalwarts of the industry should have even more market power.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

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