Analysts at Truist Securities have reiterated a Buy rating on CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWV) along with a price target of US$165.

The firm spoke with management before the company entered its quiet period, and it believes pricing conditions in the AI compute market remain favorable, with revenue potentially gaining further support in the years ahead as contracts come up for renewal.

Truist notes that the biggest questions on investors' minds are what level compute prices can hold at, and when higher market prices will actually show up in CoreWeave, Inc. contract revenue.

Price gains will not appear immediately, with 2028 likely more telling

Truist expects today's favorable compute pricing environment to make an incremental contribution to CoreWeave, Inc.'s annualized recurring revenue by the end of 2027, though a more pronounced lift may not emerge until 2028.

The reason is that a large share of CoreWeave, Inc.'s existing compute capacity has already been locked in at fixed prices through long-term contracts.

Even if new contract quotes in the market rise, higher prices can only feed into company revenue gradually as legacy contracts expire, are renegotiated, or as new capacity is signed under fresh agreements.

As a result, there is a clear time lag between today's compute price increases and their impact on CoreWeave, Inc.

As more contracts enter renewal cycles in 2027 and 2028, the company could revise revenue and margins upward if it can re-sign at higher market prices. This is the core basis for Truist's constructive stance.

CPU compute quotes are also climbing

The discussions also covered CoreWeave, Inc.'s CPU business.

Citing industry pricing, Truist pointed out that Akamai is currently quoting roughly US$22 million per megawatt over seven years for CPU workloads.

That figure offers a new market price reference for CPU compute infrastructure and shows that rising prices for data center computing resources are not confined to GPUs.

For CoreWeave, Inc., if both CPU and GPU compute can sustain strong pricing, the company will have greater room for revenue growth as it broadens its computing infrastructure portfolio.

The industry is shifting from chasing compute to locking it in at high prices

One key reason CoreWeave, Inc. has drawn analyst attention recently is that supply and demand for AI computing power remain tight.

JPMorgan previously upgraded CoreWeave, Inc. to Overweight, citing among its reasons a favorable pricing environment for computing power and the company's ability to secure higher prices through shorter-duration contracts.

That strategy means that, with AI compute demand growing rapidly, CoreWeave, Inc. can avoid locking in all of its capacity too early at lower prices for the long term, preserving room to reprice in the future.

Truist's latest discussions reinforce this logic: if compute prices stay elevated, the real payoff for CoreWeave, Inc. may not be fully visible in 2026, but will be released gradually as contracts renew over the next two years.

Power and financing remain key variables for expansion

Still, higher prices can only translate into revenue if the company can keep adding deliverable compute capacity.

As such, Truist's talks with management also covered financing plans and power resources already under contract.

For an AI infrastructure operator like CoreWeave, Inc., expansion requires data centers, power, GPUs and large amounts of capital at the same time.

Even with strong market demand, a constraint in any one of these areas could prevent the company from adding capacity as planned.

Financing capability is especially important. CoreWeave, Inc. grew revenue 115% over the past year, but rapid expansion also requires sustained heavy capital investment.

Truist previously said that, after completing its convertible senior notes offering and ATM equity issuance, CoreWeave, Inc. believes its financing arrangements are sufficient to support its capital needs through 2026.

The market's focus has shifted to 2027-2028 contract repricing

Therefore, what is truly noteworthy about Truist's latest report is not simply the reiteration of the US$165 price target, but its read on the trajectory of CoreWeave, Inc.'s future revenue.

In the near term, a large volume of contracts is already locked in, so the current rise in compute prices has limited impact on financials; by the end of 2027, higher prices will begin to feed gradually into annualized recurring revenue; and by 2028, as more contracts enter renewal cycles, the effect of higher prices may become more evident.

That means the most critical metrics to watch for CoreWeave, Inc. going forward will not just be the scale of new orders, but renewal pricing, contract duration, and whether the company can secure enough power and financing to convert high-priced compute demand into additional deliverable capacity.