The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has sparked major “euphoria” across industries – sending the benchmark S&P 500 index to a near 7,000 level.
Still, some Wall Street experts continue to recommend caution, citing three major risks that could “derail” the sector in 2026:
Smaller firms running out of capital
Disruptive tech breakthroughs that reduce compute demand.
Accelerated depreciation of expensive chips
But CoreWeave’s chief executive, Michael Intrator, dismissed each risk in a recent CNBC interview as “manageable”, arguing the company’s diversified client base, long-term contracts, and adaptive strategy position it to thrive.
At the time of writing, CoreWeave stock is down an alarming 90% versus its 52-week high.
Why smaller firms going bankrupt isn’t a concern for CoreWeave stock
Speaking this morning with CNBC at the World Economic Forum (2026), Intrator bluntly agreed that bankruptcy was indeed a real risk for some of the smaller names within the AI infrastructure space.
“We fully expect that there will be companies that go bankrupt or will be bought by other firms – and this is the natural course of how a new industry comes into existence.”
According to him, CoreWeave mitigates this risk by selling across a broad portfolio of clients from startups to enterprises.
Even if some fail, others will endure, and the entire market won’t come crumbling down. That, he believes, is a strong enough reason to stick with CRWV stock in 2026.
Why tech breakthroughs are far from concerning for CRWV shares
Michael Intrator also brushed off the idea that tech breakthroughs, like DeepSeek’s efficiency leap that dramatically reduced compute demand, would destabilize CRWV’s core business.
CoreWeave mitigates this risk by structuring its business around “long-term contracts with credit-worthy clients.”
The company works diligently to make sure that its customers can seamlessly adopt new hardware generations, he added.
All in all, CRWV shares are worth owning for the long-term as innovation, Intrator believes, fuels demand for the Nasdaq-listed firm’s business rather than eroding it.
Why depreciation isn’t as concerning for CoreWeave as many believe
Finally, CoreWeave’s chief executive dismissed the risk of “chip depreciation” and the subsequent costly upgrades as market noise.
For him, the only measure that matters is what clients are willing to pay for. Long-term contracts spanning five or six years demonstrate that compute retains value well beyond initial deployment.
Older GPUs are repurposed for secondary tasks, ensuring continued utility.
“We have seen repeated repurchase of A100s and H100s again and again from new clients with new use cases,” he noted, underscoring that depreciation isn’t a liability but a managed lifecycle.
Note that Wall Street currently has a consensus “overweight” rating on CRWV stock with a mean target of about $120, indicating potential upside of nearly 30% from here.
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