Key Points
It might seem like a risky time to buy growth stocks. The Middle East conflict remains unresolved, inflation remains high, and the Fed is reluctant to cut interest rates again. All of those challenges will likely drive investors toward more conservative investments.
However, long-term investors who can look past those near-term challenges can still find some attractive growth plays in this volatile market. Let’s take a closer look at two of those compelling stocks: CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) and Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS).
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CoreWeave
CoreWeave was originally an Ethereum mining company. But after the cryptocurrency market’s crash in 2018, it abandoned that business model and repurposed its mining GPUs to remotely process AI tasks.
CoreWeave subsequently installed more than 250,000 of Nvidia‘s (NASDAQ: NVDA) top-tier data center GPUs in its servers, and it expanded its footprint from just three data centers at the end of 2022 to 43 locations in early 2026. That scale enables it to process AI tasks roughly 35 times faster and 80% cheaper than larger and more diversified cloud infrastructure platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Azure.
From 2022 to 2025, CoreWeave’s revenue surged from $16 million to $5.1 billion. Analysts expect its revenue to surge more than sevenfold to $36.7 million in 2028. That’s an impressive growth trajectory for a stock that trades at less than five times this year’s sales.
CoreWeave’s stock looks cheaper than other AI stocks because it’s still deeply unprofitable and ended 2025 with a high debt-to-equity ratio of 13.8. That red ink and high leverage could force it to issue more shares to fund its capital-intensive expansion.
Some investors might also be concerned about its dependence on Microsoft, which historically accounts for over half of its revenue. However, CoreWeave is gradually reducing its dependence on Microsoft through new deals with OpenAI and Nvidia, and analysts expect it to turn profitable by 2028 as economies of scale kick in. Therefore, CoreWeave remains a promising growth stock for investors who can stomach near-term volatility.
Nebius Group
Nebius is another provider of cloud-based AI infrastructure services. It was once known as Yandex, which owned Russia’s top search engine and other popular apps. However, it divested its Russian assets in early 2022 (in response to the sanctions against Russia), relocated its business to the Netherlands, and rebranded itself as Nebius.
As Nebius, it operates a single first-party data center in Finland and leases additional data centers through colocation deals in the U.S., the U.K., and Europe. It’s also in the process of building a second first-party data center in New Jersey.
Unlike CoreWeave, which mainly processes GPU-intensive AI tasks, Nebius provides customized AI services for the data training, edtech, and autonomous robotics markets. It integrates managed software services (like Kubernetes) into its data centers. By bundling those services, it widens its moat and positions itself as a “full stack” AI infrastructure company.
Nebius’ earlier financials (as Yandex) are no longer relevant. But after fully transforming into a cloud-based AI infrastructure company, its revenue surged 351% to $530 million in 2025. By 2027, analysts expect its revenue to surge 19 times to $10.1 billion. It’s expected to stay unprofitable, but it ended 2025 with a manageable debt-to-equity ratio of 1.7.
Nebius, which trades at 14 times this year’s sales, might seem pricier than CoreWeave. However, it deserves that higher valuation because it’s growing faster, less dependent on Microsoft (although it’s still a top customer), and it’s shouldering less debt. Therefore, it might have even more upside potential than CoreWeave and other slower-growth AI stocks.
Should you buy stock in CoreWeave right now?
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Leo Sun has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Ethereum, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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