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Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

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Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#61
post #53
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how every bubble works.

that's what Bezos was saying at Amazon during the dot com bubble?

That's what the dumb money says because that's what they need to believe to buy in at the top. Of course the smart money is diversifying or just planning to ride it out.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#62

Why is it a big deal? Nvidia invested $2b into CoreWeave for 9% equity stake. CoreWeave is spending $35b in CapEx in 2026. Therefore, Nvidia's investment is only 5.7% of CoreWeave's single year CapEx. The other $32b is coming from other sources that isn't Nvidia. This is hardly circular. Nvidia invests in Neoclouds because it's a hedge against hyperscalers having too much power, ie designing and prioritizing their ow…

It sounds like Nvidia is not only supplying GPUs first to neoclouds, it is also supplying them for free if they cannot be resold: "Furthermore, in the case of CoreWeave, Nvidia has also provided a significant financial backstop against unsold GPU capacity. Under the agreement with an initial value of $6.3 billion, “in instances where [CoreWeave’s] datacenter capacity is not fully utilized by its own customers, NVIDIA…

From an accounting perspective, this absolutely isn't a consignment agreement.

The sale of the GPUs by Nvidia to CoreWeave is real. CoreWeave pays Nvidia cash and becomes the owner of the asset, so it's properly booked as a sale. If it can't sell capacity, the GPUs are not returned to Nvidia.

CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. That doesn't change the accounting.

If Nvidia has to purchase unused capacity, it simply becomes an operating expense for Nvidia.

Nvidia's exposure is the $6.3 billion backstop obligation and the equity it holds in CoreWeave.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#63

Why is it a big deal? Nvidia invested $2b into CoreWeave for 9% equity stake. CoreWeave is spending $35b in CapEx in 2026. Therefore, Nvidia's investment is only 5.7% of CoreWeave's single year CapEx. The other $32b is coming from other sources that isn't Nvidia. This is hardly circular. Nvidia invests in Neoclouds because it's a hedge against hyperscalers having too much power, ie designing and prioritizing their ow…

[dead]

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In case you didn't notice, nobody has invaded Russia since Hitler. Instead it has been Russia invading other countries, using whatever imaginary threat as an excuse. You may be right about WW3 in 2030, but based on the track record it's more likely that Russia will be the invader.

Ukraine invaded Russia recently.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#65
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not remotely new. When I worked at Intel ~20 years ago, Intel Capital invested in startups that would buy Intel hardware. Some of them succeeded, some did not. But "invest in companies that may grow your own TAM" is an ancient strategy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (like any strategy). I'm not disagreeing with you, just saying it's business as usual.

I don't think its really the novelty of the situation that has people worried, its the scale of it and how that scale impacts the speed at which billions of dollars of market value could poof away when/if the music stops.

I don't think it is a Novelty to people in the sector but it is a novelty to people hearing about it from a YouTube video.

People have always had difficulty understanding large scales.

I don't feel that I have the expertise to analyse business structures like these accurately and impartially, yet I am under the impression that I have a better understanding than many who confidently talk about it and preach the end is nigh.

Even if the end is,in fact, nigh. It will not render their reasoning sound. They will have been right more by coincidence than judgement.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#66
post #51
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it's not about the money itself but the model: - you fund a new company and sign long terms contracts with it - this new company uses the money you gave it and a lot of debt (backed by long term contracts) to build datacenters and buy a lot of GPU - your figures look great What happens when they run out of debt or funds? If they reach some kind of profitability it's not a big deal, but if not…

This is not remotely new. When I worked at Intel ~20 years ago, Intel Capital invested in startups that would buy Intel hardware. Some of them succeeded, some did not. But "invest in companies that may grow your own TAM" is an ancient strategy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (like any strategy). I'm not disagreeing with you, just saying it's business as usual.

For anyone else wondering, TAM seems to be ‘total addressable market’ if my searching is accurate.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Nvidia is not only supplying GPUs first to neoclouds, it is also supplying them for free if they cannot be resold: "Furthermore, in the case of CoreWeave, Nvidia has also provided a significant financial backstop against unsold GPU capacity. Under the agreement with an initial value of $6.3 billion, “in instances where [CoreWeave’s] datacenter capacity is not fully utilized by its own customers, NVIDIA…

From an accounting perspective, this absolutely isn't a consignment agreement. The sale of the GPUs by Nvidia to CoreWeave is real. CoreWeave pays Nvidia cash and becomes the owner of the asset, so it's properly booked as a sale. If it can't sell capacity, the GPUs are not returned to Nvidia. CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. T…

>CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms.

According to the article, the $6.3B is a floor, not a ceiling. And it's not clear whether CoreWeave is actually paying cash or getting the GPUs on credit. If the full amount is getting booked, it's an accounting loophole that's being exploited. If GM sells Hertz a million cars, but says "Hey, we'll buy these back if you can't rent them," can GM book all those cars as actual revenue? What if Hertz only has to pay 10% up front and the rest in 5 years?

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an accounting perspective, this absolutely isn't a consignment agreement. The sale of the GPUs by Nvidia to CoreWeave is real. CoreWeave pays Nvidia cash and becomes the owner of the asset, so it's properly booked as a sale. If it can't sell capacity, the GPUs are not returned to Nvidia. CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. T…

>CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. According to the article, the $6.3B is a floor, not a ceiling. And it's not clear whether CoreWeave is actually paying cash or getting the GPUs on credit. If the full amount is getting booked, it's an accounting loophole that's being exploited. If GM sells Hertz a million cars, but says "Hey,…

Your GM/Hertz comparison is not applicable here. Under GAAP accounting rules, GM wouldn't be able to book those as sales because it was obligated (or likely) to buy back the asset. Under the rules, this means the transaction gets treated as an operating lease. The cars would stay on GM's balance sheet and the revenue would get recognized over the lease period.

The CoreWeave-Nvidia deal is not the same because Nvidia is not buying back the asset (the GPUs). CoreWeave has title to the chips and if they're worth nothing in 5 years, that's a problem for CoreWeave and its lenders.

What Nvidia obligated itself to was buying compute capacity, which Nvidia would be able to use for its own workloads.

In the GM/Hertz analogy, this is like GM selling Hertz the cars and saying "If you can't find renters for them, we'll rent them from you at market rates, up to $x." Under GAAP accounting rules, GM would book the car sales as revenue, the commitment to rent would be a purchase obligation, and if the rentals ever occurred, GM would incur the costs as an operating expense.

There is a question of whether the CoreWeave-Nvidia deal structure is sensible economically, and how much risk is being created. But there's no GAAP accounting question here. At all.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#69
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its really the novelty of the situation that has people worried, its the scale of it and how that scale impacts the speed at which billions of dollars of market value could poof away when/if the music stops.

I don't think it is a Novelty to people in the sector but it is a novelty to people hearing about it from a YouTube video. People have always had difficulty understanding large scales. I don't feel that I have the expertise to analyse business structures like these accurately and impartially, yet I am under the impression that I have a better understanding than many who confidently talk about it and preach the end is…

I think a whole lot of people understand quite well the difference in scale in this era compared to past eras of tech industry investment.

Webvan, Pets.com, eToys.com, Kozmo.com…all these dot com busts maxed out at less than 0.3 billion dollars in investment/IPO scale before they went under. A good amount of these share similarities with the AI bubble with a lot of them promising to be the e-commerce infrastructure of the future with “unlimited potential” as brick and mortar purchases were all predicted to move online. Webvan was going to be the automated warehouse of the future, for example.

Even the successful giant unicorns look minuscule in comparison. YouTube’s total investment was under $12 million before Google bought it for $1.65 billion, which looks like peanuts compared to these Hertz rent-a-server companies.

SoftBank dumping $8 billion into Uber looks positively quaint by comparison.

Re: Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Nebius: Inside the Circular Financing of the GPU Boom

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. According to the article, the $6.3B is a floor, not a ceiling. And it's not clear whether CoreWeave is actually paying cash or getting the GPUs on credit. If the full amount is getting booked, it's an accounting loophole that's being exploited. If GM sells Hertz a million cars, but says "Hey,…

Your GM/Hertz comparison is not applicable here. Under GAAP accounting rules, GM wouldn't be able to book those as sales because it was obligated (or likely) to buy back the asset. Under the rules, this means the transaction gets treated as an operating lease. The cars would stay on GM's balance sheet and the revenue would get recognized over the lease period. The CoreWeave-Nvidia deal is not the same because Nvidia…

Great explanation. Maybe another metaphor, it’s like a builder/developer buying land from someone. They own the land, they get the title, it’s theirs.

The land owner saying “hey if you can’t sell all the apartments we’ll buy what’s left” doesn’t in any way negate the sale or revenue accounting as per GAAP etc.

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