Got $1,000? The 1 AI Software Stock I'd Buy Before It Turns Profitable – The Motley Fool

Some well-hyped companies never end up thriving. A few end up never turning a profit. This is not one of those companies.
It's been a tough past few weeks for most artificial intelligence stocks. The lack of profitability that hadn't been a problem has suddenly become one. Any name that isn't seeing solid returns on its artificial intelligence (AI) investments is falling out of favor. Unprofitable artificial intelligence companies' stocks are being downright shellacked.
For some of these companies, however, eventual profitability is nearly so certain that their stocks should start performing again well before that corner is turned. And one such name in particular comes to mind. That's CoreWeave (CRWV +4.84%).
Image source: Getty Images.
If you're not familiar with it, CoreWeave is a cloud computing service provider, building itself from the ground up to serve enterprises that want to utilize and even develop their own AI solutions, but don't want to shoulder the expense of building their own data centers.
This description, though, still doesn't do the company justice. Several companies including Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI, and Cloudflare are customers and/or partners, leveraging CoreWeave's superior technology, which the company itself describes as "the essential cloud for AI."
And rightfully so. It really can do it all, from training (including inference) to agentic AI to rendering. And it can do it all well. That's why the company's top line improved an impressive 110% year over year in the final quarter of 2025, to $1.57 billion.
The fact remains, however, CoreWeave is still in the red, losing $452 million in Q4 2025, and losing $1.17 billion for the entirety of last year on sales of $5.13 billion. Its bottom line is seemingly moving in the wrong direction.
Just don't lose perspective on the situation. The company's not profitable right now largely because it's positioning itself for the future. CoreWeave shelled out nearly $3 billion on technology and infrastructure last year — 57% of revenue — to be ready for the AI data center opportunity that's going to materialize over the course of the next two to five years. That's an unusually large amount of money, even if it ends up being worth it in the long run
It's almost certainly going to be worth it in the long run, however. Analysts expect CoreWeave to finally reach profitability by the end of that five-year span.
Then the fireworks will really start. An outlook from Precedence Research suggests the artificial intelligence data center industry is poised to grow at an average annualized pace of more than 27% through 2035,with most of its net dollar growth expected to materialize during the latter half of this timeframe, once all of this tech is fine tuned and operating very cost effectively.
Yes, accelerating revenue growth in the distant future seems counterintuitive. The argument holds water, however. This cost efficiency could have the effect of exponentially growing the industry's total number of paying customers, by making AI more affordable to organizations that would like to utilize this technology but are leery of its current prices.
More important to interested investors, the market's apt to pick up on this dynamic well before it becomes obvious. Indeed, this bullish potential could firm up in the very near future. Investors as a whole are pretty good at connecting such dots.
James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Cloudflare, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
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