After filing to go public in what is being considered a generational first, AI cloud infrastructure provider CoreWeave is slated to acquire AI developer platform Weights & Biases through a $1.7 billion deal.
The agreement, announced Tuesday, would merge CoreWeave's high-performance computing infrastructure with Weights & Biases' widely-used tools for building, monitoring, and evaluating AI models.
The financial terms are not disclosed, but the transaction has been tabled. It is expected to be completed in the first six months of 2019. The firms didn’t immediately respond Decrypt’s Requests for Comments
Weights & Biases’ tools are used by over a million AI engineers from organizations including OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA and others. Weights & Biases' tools are used by over a million AI engineers from organizations including OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, and others.
CoreWeave faces challenges when it comes to preparing its initial public offering.
Matt Turck of FirstMark Venture Capital sees CoreWeave’s campaign as “the first IPO of the Generative AI era,” Warnings about “unusual risk factors” How the AI cloud providers positions themselves.
CoreWeave IPO promises to be a fascinating event: as the very first IPO to take place in the era of Generative AI, it’s undeniably thrilling.
The profile is similar to that of a hyper-growth tech unicorn (explosive growth,… It presents a profile that in some ways is typical of a hyper-growth tech unicorn (explosive growth,…
— Matt Turck (@mattturck) March 5, 2025
“A negative take on CoreWeave and comparable companies one would often hear in tech circles is that the company is a “real estate play”, with limited technology and software,” Turck Tweeted.
He is a critic of CoreWeave co-founders “come from a financial, rather than technological, background,” Turck added.
CoreWeave could be at risk in such a situation, as it began life as a cryptocurrency miner that focused on Ethereum The Merge, which switched Ethereum over to proof-of stake consensus in 2022, will gradually shift to AI.
CoreWeave, despite a $1.92-billion revenue in 2018, reported an astonishing $863.4-million net loss by 2024. As the company is preparing for its Nasdaq listing, it may be necessary to raise additional funds in order to finance the acquisition.
The deal also raises concerns about vendor lock-in, as CoreWeave has indicated existing Weights & Biases customers will likely be encouraged to use their cloud services. This vertical integration approach is reminiscent of the strategies used by other large technology firms, which have been scrutinized.
The merger also faces potential regulatory hurdles given CoreWeave's backing by NVIDIA and the combined entity's control over both AI development tools and compute infrastructure.
Still, Weights & Biases CEO Lukas Biewald remains hopeful for favorable outcomes.
“We can build many more useful things for our mutual customers,” Biewald wrote in a recent blog that he believes, “There’s a ton of innovation at the intersection of hardware and software to unlock right now.”