面对借贷成本上升的世界，投资者一直坚持认为，负责全球数据中心建设的公司将免受影响，因此继续加大对人工智能的投入。但也有例外——其中最突出的就是CoreWeave。
Investors staring down a world of higher borrowing costs have kept piling into AI with the belief that companies behind the globe-spanning data-center build-out would be immune. But there are exceptions—none more prominent than CoreWeave.
这家由英伟达支持的算力提供商已成为人工智能交易中风险最高、杠杆率最高的角落之一的风向标。本周，它经历了一场龙卷风。
The Nvidia-backed compute provider has become a weather vane for one of the riskiest—and most highly leveraged—corners of the AI trade. This week, it endured a tornado.
周四情绪最为低落时——芯片制造商和其他乘着人工智能热潮的公司也出现震荡——英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋站出来发声。“CoreWeave的实力每天都在增强，”他在彭博社活动上表示。“我持乐观态度。”此番言论与CoreWeave债券因对人工智能盈利能力的担忧重新燃起以及通胀数据表明高利率将长期存在而引发的 steep 抛售形成对比。该公司股价也曾暴跌，周四一度较周初下跌28%。
When the sentiment was most dour Thursday—with tremors extending across chip makers and other firms riding the AI boom—Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang spoke up. “CoreWeave’s strength is improving every day,” he said at a Bloomberg event. “I’m optimistic.”The statement cut against a steep selloff in CoreWeave bonds sparked by renewed fears of AI’s profitability and hot inflation data suggesting higher rates are here to stay. The company’s stock had also crashed, at one point Thursday falling 28% from the start of the week.
但黄仁勋的言论帮助点燃了反弹，使CoreWeave股价周四上涨6%。美国国债的上涨通过降低基准利率为这一走势提供了动力——该利率本月初曾达到二十年来的高点。
But Huang’s statement helped spark a rebound that sent CoreWeave shares 6% higher Thursday. A rally in U.S. Treasurys added fuel for the move by driving down benchmark interest rates that had reached two-decade highs earlier this month.
这一龙卷风事件凸显了人工智能市场某些部分对借贷成本变化的敏感性，即便现金充裕的数据中心超大规模运营商如微软和Alphabet目前仍表现出不敏感。
The whirlwind episode showed how sensitive certain parts of the AI market are to changes in borrowing costs, even as cash-rich data-center hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Alphabet are so far insensitive.
投资者认为，长期高利率实际上是对边际借款人的一种税收，“而在人工智能交易中，边际借款人指的是所有不是高质量超大规模运营商的人，”伯恩斯坦公司高收益投资组合经理Ali Bendarkawi表示。
Investors are viewing higher-for-longer rates as an effective tax on marginal borrowers, “and the marginal borrower in the AI trade is anyone who’s not a high-quality hyperscaler,” said Ali Bendarkawi, high yield portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.
CoreWeave曾是一家加密货币矿工，2025年上市，是一小批既竞争又为超大规模运营商提供服务的初创公司之一，通过租赁高端芯片来训练和运行人工智能模型。由于缺乏科技巨头的规模和盈利能力，这些新进入者高度依赖债务来扩张。
A onetime cryptocurrency-miner that went public in 2025, CoreWeave is a part of a small group of upstart companies that are both competing with and servicing hyperscalers by renting high-end chips to train and run AI models. Without the scale and profitability of tech giants, the newcomers have been heavily reliant on debt to expand.
华尔街本周对这些股票进行了猛烈抛售。Nebius Group 下跌 15%，IREN 暴跌 14%，基本上与 CoreWeave 的 15% 下跌幅度相呼应。
Wall Street has hammered those stocks this week. Nebius Group retreated 15% and IREN tumbled 14%, largely mirroring CoreWeave’s 15% decline.
该公司的借款计划一年多来一直令投资者感到不安。由于其相对于收益的债务水平较高，CoreWeave 获得了标普全球的“B”级，即高度投机性的信用评级。
The company’s borrowing plans have made investors uneasy all year. CoreWeave carries a ‘B,’ or highly speculative, credit rating from S&P Global because it carries a high level of debt relative to earnings.
7 月份，CoreWeave 的银行家修订了银团贷款出售的条款，以吸引足够的投资者，最终将该债务定价在收益率超过 10% 的水平。
In July, CoreWeave’s bankers revised terms of a syndicated loan sale to attract enough investors, ultimately pricing the debt at a yield above 10%.
“债券市场告诉我们的是，他们面临更高的违约风险，”特拉詹财富的首席投资官大卫·布施表示。“这不一定意味着对 AI 计算的需求正在削弱。但在我看来，CoreWeave 巨额的借款需求可能会压垮其产生现金以及以合理利率再融资债务的能力，这正日益令人担忧。”据 FactSet 数据，CoreWeave 资产负债表上至少背负 350 亿美元的债务。研究机构 CreditSights 的技术主管乔丹·查尔芬表示，该公司预计将在未来 3.5 年内耗尽约 800 亿美元的现金。
“What the bond market is telling us is that they have a higher default risk,” said David Busch, chief investment officer for Trajan Wealth. “It’s not necessarily weakening demand for AI computing. But, in my mind, it’s a growing concern that CoreWeave’s enormous borrowing requirements could overwhelm its ability to generate cash and refinance debt at reasonable rates.”In all, CoreWeave is carrying at least $35 billion of debt on its balance sheet, according to FactSet. It is expected to burn through around $80 billion of cash over the next 3½ years, said Jordan Chalfin, head of technology at the research firm CreditSights.
上升的利率往往会通过使风险资产看起来吸引力下降而抽干市场的泡沫。美国国债收益率上升冲击了科技公司的估值倍数，并给IPO市场蒙上阴影，其中两家澳大利亚数据中心公司最近暂停了计划中的发行。博通CEO周一通过暗示AI投资者“对他们正在投资的东西一无所知”进一步加剧了悲观情绪。
Rising rates tend to suck the froth out of markets by making risky assets look less attractive. Higher U.S. Treasury yields have hit the valuation multiples of tech companies and cast a pall over the IPO market, where two Australian data-center companies recently pumped the brakes on planned offerings. Broadcom’s CEO added to the bad mood Monday by suggesting AI investors have “no clue what they are investing in.”
保护CoreWeave债务免于违约的成本本周飙升至历史最高水平，其部分无担保债券周三跌破每美元80美分。CoreWeave到2031年到期的债券收益率超过可比美国国债收益率10个百分点以上——这是一个象征性的阈值，行业开始在此将债券视为“困境债券”。投资者和分析师表示，如果CoreWeave现有债券的收益率仍保持在近期水平，该公司可能无法发行更多无担保债券。
The cost to protect CoreWeave’s debt against default spiked to an all-time high this week, and some of its unsecured bonds dropped below 80 cents on the dollar Wednesday. A CoreWeave bond due in 2031 traded at a yield more than 10 percentage points higher than the comparable Treasury yield—a symbolic threshold where the industry starts considering a bond “distressed.”Investors and analysts said that CoreWeave likely can’t issue more unsecured bonds if yields on its existing bonds remain near recent levels.
但他们补充说，该公司仍有其他融资方式，包括以Meta Platforms等客户的有价值合同为担保的有担保贷款以及不同类型的股权融资。根据FactSet的数据，截至6月底，无担保债券占公司总债务的22%。
But they added the company still has other ways to fund itself, including secured loans backed by valuable contracts with customers such as Meta Platforms and different types of equity financing. Conventional unsecured bonds made up 22% of the company’s total debt at the end of June, according to FactSet.
一些投资者持乐观态度。美国银行周四上调了CoreWeave的收入增长预测，预计在AI算力需求激增的背景下，价格将上涨、产能将提升。周三，根据Vanda Analytics的数据，散户投资者购买了创纪录数量的CoreWeave股份。
Some investors are optimistic. Bank of America on Thursday boosted its revenue-growth forecasts for CoreWeave, projecting higher prices and greater capacity amid surging demand for AI computing power. On Wednesday, retail investors bought a record amount of CoreWeave shares, according to Vanda Analytics.
不过，投资者周四抛售了芯片制造商和AI基础设施公司的股票，转而涌入黄金和国债等更安全的资产。根据Tradeweb的数据，10年期美国国债收益率周四收于5.086%，较周三的5.189%有所下降。道琼斯工业平均指数上涨1.1%，即556点；标普500指数上涨0.3%；纳斯达克综合指数微涨0.1%。
Still, investors unloaded shares in chip makers and AI infrastructure firms Thursday, piling into safer assets such as gold and Treasurys. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note settled at 5.086%, according to Tradeweb, down from 5.189% Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1%, or 556 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite inched 0.1% higher.
“财政部收益率的上升已经使金融环境变得更加紧张，”Amova资产管理美洲公司首席投资官彼得·格拉夫说。“即使他们对超大规模企业没有影响，他们也将在减缓经济部分方面做得很好。我们开始看到分化。”请将稿件发送至david.uberti@wsj.com（David Uberti）、jack.pitcher@wsj.com（Jack Pitcher）和sam.goldfarb@wsj.com（Sam Goldfarb）。
“The rise in Treasury yields has made financial conditions tighter already,” said Peter Graf, chief investment officer at Amova Asset Management Americas. “They’re going to do a great job slowing down parts of the economy, even if they don’t have an impact on hyperscalers. We’re starting to see a divergence.”Write to David Uberti at david.uberti@wsj.com, Jack Pitcher at jack.pitcher@wsj.com and Sam Goldfarb at sam.goldfarb@wsj.com