Highlights:

  • CoreWeave began in 2017 as an Ethereum cryptocurrency mine, processing Ethereum blockchain transactions on a massive scale.
  • CoreWeave claims to own one of the largest HGX clusters in the world and to support more than 3,500 Nvidia H100 GPUs in its supercomputer infrastructure.

CoreWeave Inc., a provider of cloud compute infrastructure, stated that it has secured USD 2.3 billion in debt funding, which it expects to utilize solely to purchase new gear for artificial intelligence training.

Magnetar Capital led the round of fundraising, which also witnessed the participation of DigitalBridge, Coatue, PIMCO, BlackRock, Great Elm, and Carlyle. Magnetar also led the company’s Series B and extension, which raised USD 421 million, bringing the company’s total raised prior to this debt financing to USD 571 million.

With the growth of interest in generative artificial intelligence, the requirement for additional cloud infrastructure to train them has resulted in vast quantities of compute and graphics processing units to train the models.

CoreWeave began in 2017 as an Ethereum cryptocurrency mine, processing Ethereum blockchain transactions on a massive scale with Nvidia Corp. GPUs to earn crypto tokens. To earn the cash, the business deployed racks of GPUs in data centers. In recent years, the company’s approach has shifted to a focus on general-purpose computers and generative AI technology.

With the strength of Nvidia GPUs beneath the hood, CoreWeave can beat other cloud providers in specialized use cases, particularly AI-specific requirements, according to the business.

Since its debut in late 2022, OpenAI LP’s generative AI chatbot ChatGPT has demonstrated that generative AI models are capable of incredible feats, such as recognizing human speech and responding with humanlike expressiveness. Image-generating models such as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney can generate photorealistic and vibrant artwork based on text prompts.

Michael Intrator, Chief Executive and Co-founder of CoreWeave said, “It’s undeniable that AI has the potential to solve massive global problems – from enhanced productivity and increased access to education to accelerated development of cancer treatments and beyond. This explosive growth of AI and machine learning has triggered an equally explosive demand for the infrastructure needed to support it.”

CoreWeave provides cloud clusters with access to Nvidia’s most powerful high-performance data center GPU technology, including the Nvidia H100 Tensor Core, which is part of the Nvidia HGX H100 platform. CoreWeave clients can now access additional Nvidia cards, such as the A100, A40s, and RTX A6000s.

Customers can utilize these Nvidia GPUs for AI and machine learning, visual effects and rendering, transcoding, and pixel streaming, among other things. CoreWeave claims to have one of the world’s largest HGX clusters and to support over 3,500 Nvidia H100 GPUs in its supercomputer infrastructure.

Last month, CoreWeave announced the commencing of a new data center in Plano, Texas, which will be entirely functional by the year’s end. The USD 1.6 billion facility, measuring 450,000 square feet, will be the company’s first facility in Texas.