CoreWeave signs $6B deal with Jane Street to provide AI compute power

Jane Street said it needs GPU-based computing power to keep its trading and research operations competitive amid growing adoption of AI.

CoreWeave, a publicly traded AI cloud infrastructure company, announced on Wednesday a $6 billion deal with quantitative trading firm Jane Street, in which the firm will use CoreWeave’s AI cloud computing infrastructure to power its trading and research operations.

Under the agreement, CoreWeave will provide Jane Street with compute from multiple data center facilities, the company's announcement said.

Jane Street also purchased $1 billion in CoreWeave Class A Common stock at $109 per share, according to CoreWeave.

Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) rose by 1.5% on Wednesday, climbing to about $119.04 at the time of publication, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

The deal comes about one week after CoreWeave announced an agreement with Anthropic, in which the AI developer would use CoreWeave’s compute infrastructure to power its Claude AI large language models. 

CoreWeave’s pivot to AI predates the crypto mining industry’s shift by years, and highlights how miners can repurpose their infrastructure to power high-performance computing and shore up declining revenues amid a challenging economic environment.

Related: CoreWeave’s $8.5B loan shows how AI is replacing crypto mining finance

CoreWeave was founded as a crypto mining company called Atlantic Crypto, in 2017, before beginning a pivot to AI cloud computing infrastructure in 2019.

The company’s shift to AI infrastructure years ahead of the crypto mining industry’s rush into the sector helped establish CoreWeave as a leading “neocloud” company, according to analysts from asset management and investment research company Bernstein.

“Neocloud” service providers are cloud computing companies built around graphics processing units (GPUs), which power artificial intelligence workloads. 

Traditional cloud service providers power their operations with basic computer processing units (CPUs) suitable for running websites, Web2 platforms, video games, media streaming and applications.

The analysts compared CoreWeave with IREN and Nebius, and concluded that “relative to its neocloud peers, CRWV has by far the strongest commercial machine.” 

CoreWeave benefits from a mix of contractual agreements and on-demand revenue-generating activities, while also commanding a diverse customer base, Bernstein said.

“Nine of the leading 10 AI model providers now leverage CoreWeave’s platform,” spokespeople for CoreWeave said following the Anthropic deal in April.

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Source: CoinTelegraph