CoreWeave co-founder and chief development officer Brannin McBee is pouring cold water over fears that the AI industry is in a bubble. In fact, he claims the opposite is true: that demand for AI is far outstripping the available supply.
CoreWeave was originally founded in 2017 with a plan to use GPUs (graphics processing units, or high-power computer chips primarily made by Nvidia) to mine cryptocurrency. Around 2019, the company pivoted to serve the rapidly-growing compute demands of artificial intelligence businesses. These companies rely on GPUs to train and run new AI models, and have turned CoreWeave into a true AI industry power player. Currently, CoreWeave operates 33 data centers in the United States.
While speaking at the annual Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala in Phoenix, Arizona, McBee said that worries and concerns about an “AI bubble” are unfounded. “There is just nowhere near enough infrastructure to keep up with the demand that’s out in the market,” said McBee, “there’s just not enough capacity.”
McBee said that in previous years, CoreWeave’s customers were heavily focused on training new AI models, but as AI-powered products become commercialized, he’s seeing a shift in which clients are prioritizing inference, which refers to the act of actually running and using AI models.
“CEOs of leading AI labs talk about this all the time,” said McBee, referencing memes shared by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of GPUs melting. Just in 2025, OpenAI has signed three deals with CoreWeave worth a combined $22.4 billion.
In August, McBee said, CoreWeave experienced “a surge in demand” from clients looking to bolster their inference capabilities over the next several years. As a result of that demand, McBee told Inc. policy correspondent Melissa Angell, CoreWeave is now signing longer-term deals with large customers to provide inference support over five or more years.
Angell also asked McBee about CoreWeaves’s recently announced venture fund, which he said would invest in “companies that are solving unique compute-intensive problems.”
One of CoreWeave’s first portfolio companies is Moonvalley, a startup developing AI video models that have been trained on licensed television shows and movies. “Having these specific content-approved models and licensing efforts can be really disruptive for the media entertainment sector,” said McBee.
McBee said that CoreWeave has “an ability to see where the puck is going” because of its diverse set of clients, and is planning its future accordingly. “I think you’re gonna see us moving up the stack vertically with software services that our clients are asking for,” he said, “and we’ll continue to be active in not only investing, but acquiring companies that are critically integrated.”
Ben Sherry
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