This page covers the owner-return layer of the AI capex chain: the leases, debt, depreciation, interest, power contracts, GPUs, campuses, cloud contracts, customer advances, and construction spending that sit between AI demand and common-equity cash returns. The stack sits operationally in cloud capacity planning, data-center construction, GPU fleet financing, colocation leases, and platform capex budgets. Customers pay through cloud usage, committed compute, ad-funded AI products, productivity software, colocation rent, customer prepayments, or long-term AI campus leases. Companies collect through revenue, remaining performance obligations, backlog conversion, annual recurring revenue, rent commencement, billable megawatts, operating income, and free cash flow after capex. CRWV, ORCL, NBIS, and APLD rank highest because the financing mechanism already drives the equity case; IREN and CORZ add direct miner-to-AI infrastructure conversion; META, AMZN, GOOGL, and MSFT fund the demand pool with larger cash engines; WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI remain watch-tier until rent, billing, collections, and financing terms are clearer.
What the stack is: AI infrastructure financing is the set of funding contracts, leases, debt facilities, customer advances, depreciation policies, purchase commitments, and cash-flow bridges used to turn GPUs, power, land, buildings, networking, and cloud software into usable AI capacity.
What it does: the stack pays suppliers and construction partners before customers have fully consumed the capacity, then tests whether revenue, rent, and cloud margin can cover power, GPU refresh, lease expense, interest, depreciation, maintenance capex, and refinancing.
Main pieces: committed cloud contracts, RPO, backlog, ARR, data-center leases, project debt, converts, customer prepayments, operating and finance leases, PP&E, useful-life assumptions, power delivery, tenant acceptance, receivables, and free cash flow after capital spending.
Where it sits: inside hyperscaler capex budgets, AI-cloud balance sheets, data-center campus project finance, colocated high-density racks, utility and power interconnection schedules, and the accounting footnotes that define debt, leases, depreciation, commitments, and customer advances.
How the parent theme uses it: the AI Capex Cycle creates demand for compute, memory, networking, power, cooling, and software; this node asks which companies can collect enough cash from that demand to leave equity holders with a return after the asset base is financed.
Terms used later: RPO means contracted revenue not yet recognized; backlog means committed future revenue subject to delivery; ARR means annualized recurring revenue; billable MW means megawatts accepted by a tenant and able to generate rent or service revenue; FCF after capex means operating cash flow minus property, equipment, and infrastructure spending.
Report boundary: this node is a tactical report layer. It ranks the current financing and ROI pressure basket, static setup thresholds, confirmation triggers, invalidation levels, chart provenance, and source routes. Durable research, claim IDs, raw source registries, and sector thesis maintenance stay in the linked knowledge pages. Price and volume context comes from read-only discovery daily_ohlc through 2026-06-12, while the static setup thresholds shown in this artifact still use the completed week ending 2026-06-05.
Current Setup
Owner-return testDemand is visible; cash capture is the underwriting gate.
AI infrastructure revenue, RPO, backlog, and signed leases need to become margin and free cash flow after capex, leases, debt, interest, depreciation, customer concentration, and construction timing.
Direct proofCRWV, ORCL, NBIS, and APLD carry the clearest pressure.
Backlog, RPO, ARR, customer advances, capex, leases, and financing terms already drive the equity read.
Conversion gateRent, utilization, margin, and collections must catch up.
Watch revenue recognition, rent commencement, active power, billable MW, receivables, and FCF after capex.
Primary constraintFunding can arrive before returns.
Debt, converts, leases, useful-life assumptions, customer concentration, refinancing, and dilution can absorb demand.
Demand bookedRPO, backlog, ARR
Assets builtGPU, power, campus
Cash collectedRent, usage, margin
Equity testFCF after capex
AI capex now has to be judged against free cash flow after capex, depreciation, leases, interest, utilization, customer concentration, and dilution. The page compares cloud growth, RPO, backlog, ARR, signed leases, billable MW, and customer prepayments with the cost of building and financing the asset base. A larger AI infrastructure footprint helps shareholders only when revenue, rent, margin, and collections cover power, GPU refresh, depreciation, lease expense, interest, construction spend, and replacement capex.
The favorable setup is strongest where demand has a named collection route. ORCL has OCI and database/cloud RPO; CRWV and NBIS have contracted AI compute demand and customer advances; APLD, IREN, CORZ, WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI have signed leases, ARR, billable MW, or AI-campus milestones; META, AMZN, GOOGL, and MSFT have ad, AWS, Search/Cloud, Azure, Microsoft 365, GitHub, security, and Copilot cash engines. The next positive proof is conversion: revenue, rent commencement, active utilization, margin, collections, and free cash flow improving while capex and financing claims stop growing faster than cash returns.
The risk is that financing and depreciation arrive before the return. Debt, leases, converts, customer concentration, construction delays, power delivery, GPU costs, refinancing, dilution, Bitcoin revenue decline, and accounting assumptions can absorb the economics. Watch capex guides, lease and purchase commitments, customer advances, useful lives, interest expense, project-finance terms, customer acceptance, and whether ARR, RPO, backlog, or MW becomes collected cash.
Right-rail charts use weekly bars aggregated from discovery daily_ohlc. Local rows are now current through 2026-06-12, while the static setup thresholds on this page still use the completed week ending 2026-06-05 and must be refreshed before use as current trading evidence. Fundamental claims route to the AI Capex Cycle theme, Funding Dependency theme, sector lanes, linked security lanes, and official filing or IR routes listed in the Source Trail.
Basket
This basket is inherited from the parent AI capex capital-funder and AI-cloud-capacity routes, then hand-ranked by direct exposure to financing, depreciation, and ROI pressure. Rank is not a quality score. It measures how much the equity case depends on converting AI demand into cash after capex, leases, debt, depreciation, interest, construction cost, customer concentration, and dilution. CRWV, ORCL, NBIS, and APLD rank above the megacap funders because financing and infrastructure conversion are already central to the valuation. MSFT ranks lowest in pressure intensity because its funding capacity is strongest, even though Azure, RPO, Copilot, Cloud margin, and FCF after PP&E still require monitoring.
Direct AI-cloud capacity provider where backlog, debt, leases, capex, and customer concentration are already the equity case.
Market cap$60.3B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$2.078B
Role in stack
CoreWeave sells committed GPU cloud capacity to AI labs, hyperscalers, and enterprises. The conversion gate is delivery of powered clusters that are used, billed, collected, and financed without interest, leases, depreciation, or customer concentration taking the return.
Revenue mix
The lane treats revenue as AI cloud infrastructure and related managed services. Customer and product-level mix is incomplete, so backlog quality, receivables, and customer concentration stay in the read.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $2.078B for the three months ended March 31, 2026, from CoreWeave's May 7, 2026 results release and SEC exhibit.
OCI and database/cloud RPO create a direct test of whether AI infrastructure contracts can outrun capex, debt, and lease commitments.
Market cap$563.6B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$19.18B
Role in stack
Oracle turns database, enterprise software, and OCI demand into contracted cloud capacity. The gate is whether RPO, customer funding, customer-supplied GPU arrangements, OCI margins, and capacity activation cover capex, leases, debt, power, and depreciation.
Revenue mix
Cloud services, license support, cloud licenses, hardware, and services all matter, but OCI is the incremental AI infrastructure route. The software base helps fund the build while OCI unit economics remain the proof point.
Latest qtr revenue
Fiscal Q4 2026 revenue was reported at $19.18B in MarketWatch's June 10, 2026 earnings coverage. Oracle's official Q4 page was not available through the bounded source search during this pass.
Purpose-built AI cloud capacity route where customer advances and strategic contracts must become active utilization before financing dilution.
Market cap$45.0B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$399.0M
Role in stack
Nebius sells AI cloud capacity, storage, networking, managed AI tooling, and software around GPU and power supply. Connected power needs to become active utilization and revenue before converts, debt, ATM capacity, and depreciation dilute returns.
Revenue mix
The local lane says Nebius AI cloud supplied about 98% of Q1 2026 revenue. Avride, TripleTen, ClickHouse, and Toloka are secondary because AI cloud capacity carries the capex and financing burden.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $399.0M; Barron's and Investor's Business Daily reported the figure in May 2026 earnings coverage, while the local lane carries the same period detail.
AI Factory campus developer where signed lease value needs construction, acceptance, project financing, and site NOI proof.
Market cap$11.8B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$126.6M
Role in stack
Applied Digital develops power-backed high-density AI Factory campuses and leases them to hyperscale customers. Contracted lease value becomes equity economics only after tenant acceptance, uptime, project financing, power pass-through, and residual site NOI are visible.
Revenue mix
HPC Hosting is now the largest segment, with legacy Data Center Hosting and Cloud Services still in the reported base. ChronoScale makes retained cloud-service accounting a watch item.
Latest qtr revenue
Fiscal Q3 2026 revenue was $126.6M for the quarter ended February 28, 2026, from Applied Digital's April 8, 2026 results release.
Miner-to-AI infrastructure conversion where Microsoft and NVIDIA-linked demand must replace Bitcoin-heavy revenue with collected AI cloud cash.
Market cap$20.3B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$144.8M
Role in stack
IREN converts power-connected mining sites into AI cloud capacity. The route is Microsoft/NVIDIA-linked ARR becoming recognized AI Cloud revenue, utilization, margin, and collections before capex, converts, ATM issuance, impairments, and Bitcoin declines absorb the economics.
Revenue mix
Q3 FY2026 revenue was still mostly Bitcoin mining, while AI Cloud Services is the strategic growth segment. The power and data-center platform is the asset base that must convert into billable AI capacity.
Latest qtr revenue
Q3 FY2026 total revenue was $144.8M for the three months ended March 31, 2026, from IREN's May 7, 2026 business update.
Ad-funded AI infrastructure spender where Family of Apps cash flow must carry capex, commitments, and Reality Labs losses.
Market cap$1.55T
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$56.311B
Role in stack
Meta uses Family of Apps advertising to fund recommendation systems, AI agents, devices, and AI infrastructure. The pressure test is whether ad pricing, impressions, engagement, and AI products sustain FCF after capex.
Revenue mix
Family of Apps advertising supplies substantially all revenue and operating profit. Reality Labs remains small-revenue and high-loss, making it a capital-allocation drag rather than the collection route.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $56.311B for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, from Meta's April 29, 2026 results release.
AWS is both AI demand source and funding test as PP&E purchases compete with operating cash flow.
Market cap$2.93T
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$181.5B
Role in stack
Amazon has to convert AI and core cloud usage into AWS operating income while retail, advertising, seller services, subscriptions, and liquidity fund infrastructure commitments.
Revenue mix
Revenue spans online stores, third-party seller services, advertising, subscriptions, physical stores, other, and AWS. AWS is the highest-margin segment and the main AI infrastructure justification.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 net sales were $181.5B for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, from Amazon's April 29, 2026 results release.
Search, YouTube, and Cloud fund the buildout, while Cloud backlog and AI monetization need to cover capex and financing.
Market cap$4.86T
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$109.896B
Role in stack
Alphabet uses Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud cash flow to fund AI infrastructure, TPU/Gemini capacity, leases, commitments, power, and depreciation. Cloud margin and Search AI monetization control conversion.
Revenue mix
Google Services is the main profit pool; Google Cloud is the incremental AI and enterprise infrastructure route. Other Bets are secondary to this node.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 total revenue was $109.896B for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, from Alphabet's SEC-filed earnings exhibit.
Strongest self-funding profile in the basket, but Azure, RPO, and Copilot still need to become durable FCF per share.
Market cap$3.08T
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$82.886B
Role in stack
Azure, Microsoft 365, GitHub, security, data, and Copilot fund AI capex. The pressure test is durable cloud consumption, seats, retention, margin, and FCF per share.
Revenue mix
Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing all matter. Intelligent Cloud and Microsoft 365/Copilot carry the AI capex ROI read.
Latest qtr revenue
FY2026 Q3 revenue was $82.886B for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, from Microsoft's April 29, 2026 results release.
Mining infrastructure conversion into CoreWeave-linked AI/HPC colocation with customer and financing concentration.
Market cap$7.3B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$115.7M
Role in stack
Core Scientific converts former mining infrastructure into AI/HPC colocation capacity, currently concentrated around CoreWeave. Value converts through billable MW, lease payments, collections, and colocation margins after capex, debt service, and controls remediation.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 revenue was led by colocation, with residual self-mining and hosted mining. The business is becoming an AI/HPC colocation platform, but customer concentration remains narrow.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 total revenue was $115.244M in the local CORZ security lane, routed to the Q1 2026 10-Q. Colocation revenue was $77.539M, or 67% of total revenue.
Watch-tier power-backed HPC lessor where energized MW and lease revenue must overcome construction, debt, and dilution.
Market cap$11.5B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$34.0M
Role in stack
TeraWulf must turn Lake Mariner, Abernathy, and future powered sites into operating, rent-paying critical IT MW while managing construction spend, tenant concentration, debt, equity issuance, and MW definition reconciliation.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 HPC lease revenue was the majority of revenue, with digital assets a residual flexible-load contributor. The disclosure still needs clearer gross, contracted, powered, operating, and rent-paying MW reconciliation.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $34.0M, including $21.0M of HPC lease revenue, from TeraWulf's May 8, 2026 results release.
Watch-tier HPC campus developer where contracted capacity needs rent commencement and covenant-safe project cash flow.
Market cap$8.4B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$35.0M
Role in stack
Cipher needs Barber Lake, Black Pearl, and future campuses to reach tenant access, rent commencement, NOI, and covenant-safe project cash flow before debt and construction costs dilute common-equity economics.
Revenue mix
Current revenue remains tied to Bitcoin mining in the local lane, while the valuation debate is shifting to HPC capacity and long-term lease conversion.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $35M, from Cipher Digital's first-quarter 2026 business update PDF.
Watch-tier power-first AI campus developer where disclosed lease value still needs delivered capacity and project financing proof.
Market cap$11.1B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$71.0M
Role in stack
Hut 8 needs River Bend and Beacon Point leases to become delivered AI data-center cash flow while Bitcoin, Compute, project notes, and subsidiary financing remain visible.
Revenue mix
Compute and Bitcoin-linked operations still matter today. The AI data-center lease route is the forward driver but not yet a mature cash-flow base.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $71.0M in the local HUT security lane, routed to the Q1 2026 10-Q and results release. Segment revenue was Compute $66.0M, Power $3.7M, and Digital Infrastructure $1.3M.
Small-cap AI infrastructure buildout where NC-1/Nscale and Paris contracts must become billing, collections, and permanent financing.
Market cap$815M
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$21.9M
Role in stack
WhiteFiber needs NC-1/Nscale and Paris AI compute contracts to become billing, collections, operating leverage, and permanent financing before bridge debt, related-party financing, customer churn, and short public history dominate common equity.
Revenue mix
WhiteFiber reports cloud services and colocation services. Q1 2026 cloud services were the revenue majority, while the strategic colocation ramp is the main financing and collection test.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $21.9M, from WhiteFiber's first-quarter 2026 results release carried by PR Newswire.
Market caps use local discovery instruments.market_cap queried read-only on 2026-06-13. Next earnings dates were checked through bounded company IR/news and web searches on 2026-06-13; no credible company-confirmed next earnings date was found for the basket, so every card is marked Not confirmed. Latest-quarter revenue sources and caveats are repeated in each card and in the Source Trail.
What Confirms Or Weakens
AreaWhat confirmsWhat weakens or invalidatesWatch next
01Node thesisDemand becomes owner cash
What confirms
FCF after capex, operating income, rent or usage collections, and backlog, RPO, ARR, or lease conversion improve together.
What weakens or invalidates
Capex guides, leases, debt, converts, commitments, depreciation, or customer prepayments rise faster than revenue, utilization, margin, collections, or free cash flow.
Watch next
Q2 2026 earnings
FCF after capex
Revenue recognition
Useful-life disclosures
02Economics mechanismRPO, ARR, rent, FCF
What confirms
Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, OCI, Family of Apps ads, productivity software, RPO, cloud backlog, rent, and billable MW convert at stable or improving margin while PP&E additions and leases stop rising faster than operating cash flow.
What weakens or invalidates
Capex guides rise again without matching Cloud/AWS/OCI/FoA/Microsoft Cloud margin, AI product revenue, rent, usage revenue, or FCF recovery.
Watch next
ORCL RPO and OCI margin
MSFT Azure and RPO
AMZN AWS OI
GOOGL Cloud backlog
META ad pricing
03Customer and collection qualityCounterparty proof
What confirms
CRWV and NBIS backlog, ARR, customer advances, active power, and contracted power become recognized revenue, operating income, collections, and lower financing intensity.
What weakens or invalidates
Customer concentration, weak receivable quality, delayed deployments, service credits, customer churn, or expensive refinancing offsets demand growth.
Watch next
CRWV active power
CRWV customer concentration
NBIS connected power
Customer advances
Receivable aging
04Campus and operating deliveryCapacity becomes rent
What confirms
APLD, IREN, CORZ, WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI show tenant acceptance, rent commencement, billable MW, AI Cloud revenue, site NOI, project finance, and cash collections that preserve common-equity economics.
What weakens or invalidates
Construction slippage, Bitcoin revenue gaps, cost overruns, restricted cash, MW definition changes, weak customer credit, or project economics shift value to lenders, partners, preferred holders, or warrant holders.
Watch next
Rent-paying MW
Lease commencement
Capex per MW
Power delivery
Project-debt terms
05Funding and policy gateCapital stays available
What confirms
Operating cash funds more of the buildout and disclosures show stable debt, leases, capitalized interest, depreciation lives, customer prepayments, power agreements, and receivable quality.
What weakens or invalidates
Reported cash flow improves mainly through prepayments, useful-life changes, asset sales, sale-leasebacks, equity-linked financing, or working-capital timing rather than recurring margin.
Watch next
PP&E footnotes
Lease commitments
Debt maturities
Capitalized interest
Share count
06Supply and physical constraintBuildout remains usable
What confirms
GPU availability, power delivery, interconnection, cooling, construction labor, networking gear, and campus commissioning support planned capacity without material delay or cost creep.
What weakens or invalidates
GPU cost inflation, power bottlenecks, permitting or interconnection delays, construction overruns, equipment shortages, export controls, or customer acceptance delays prevent capacity from becoming revenue.
Watch next
Power delivery
Tenant acceptance
GPU financing
Cooling and switchgear
Export controls
07Stale conditionRefresh trigger
What confirms
Discovery daily_ohlc remains current through 2026-06-12, linked knowledge lanes still cover the latest filings and contracts, and right-rail API charts refresh from the local report API.
What weakens or invalidates
The static setup thresholds still use completed weekly bars through 2026-06-05. A new completed weekly close, earnings release, 10-Q, lease, financing update, or source-lane refresh makes the setup stale.
Watch next
Refresh weekly setup
Update source lanes
Run report API checks
Review new filings
Source Trail
Canonical Thesis
AI Capex Cycle defines the value-chain map and the owner-return proof burden for AI infrastructure spending.
Market caps use the local discovery instruments.market_cap field queried read-only on 2026-06-13 for CRWV, ORCL, NBIS, APLD, IREN, META, AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT, CORZ, WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI.
Next earnings dates were checked through bounded company IR, news, exchange/calendar, and web searches on 2026-06-13. No credible company-confirmed next earnings date was found for any basket constituent, so every card uses Not confirmed instead of an estimated date.
Latest-quarter revenue sources: CRWV Q1 2026 official release and SEC exhibit, ORCL fiscal Q4 2026 MarketWatch earnings coverage because the official Q4 page was not available in bounded search, NBIS Q1 2026 security lane and company release routing, APLD fiscal Q3 2026 official release, IREN Q3 FY2026 official release, META Q1 2026 official release, AMZN Q1 2026 official release and 10-Q, GOOGL Q1 2026 SEC earnings exhibit, MSFT FY2026 Q3 official release, CORZ Q1 2026 security lane routed to the 10-Q, WULF Q1 2026 official release, CIFR Q1 2026 report, HUT Q1 2026 security lane routed to the 10-Q and results release, and WYFI Q1 2026 PR Newswire release.
CORZ and HUT latest-quarter revenue values are lane-routed rather than independently re-fetched in this review pass. Treat them as source-backed local knowledge values, but refresh the underlying filings before using them as newly current operating bases.
Companion Routes
AI-Cloud Capacity And Financing gives the single-name CRWV capacity-financing read that feeds this broader owner-return node.
Market Fragility Amplification covers beta, duration, liquidity, and valuation tolerance risk when capex evidence disappoints.
Discovery And Chart Provenance
The selected-security right rail calls the local report API at /api/securities/TICKER/chart?frequency=weekly&window=3y&as_of=latest. The API reads daily_ohlc from the local discovery store and returns weekly packages using first open, maximum high, minimum low, final close, and summed volume.
Read-only DuckDB coverage on 2026-06-13 showed local daily_ohlc rows through 2026-06-12 for CRWV, ORCL, NBIS, APLD, IREN, META, AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT, CORZ, WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI.
Static setup thresholds in this artifact still use completed weekly bars through 2026-06-05. The live API chart data is newer than those thresholds, so setup labels must be refreshed before use as current trading evidence. Horizontal overlays require assets/chart-level-rules.js registry rules.
CRWV has 63 completed weekly rows, NBIS has 85, and WYFI has 44, so those chart packages have 20W EMAs but no 100W EMA. The remaining charted names have enough history for 20W and 100W EMAs.
Chart assumptions: three-year visible horizon where available, weekly OHLC aggregated from daily rows, 20W EMA, 100W EMA when enough history exists, and weekly volume. No full OHLC payload is embedded in the HTML.
Known Gaps
No company-confirmed next earnings date was found in the bounded 2026-06-13 web pass. The basket therefore avoids unverified calendar estimates.
Right-rail API chart data is fresher than the static setup thresholds. A review pass should refresh setup levels from completed weekly bars before using this page as live trading evidence.
No company in this basket discloses a full AI unit-economics bridge from infrastructure dollars to incremental revenue, depreciation, utilization, margin, and free cash flow.
CRWV, ORCL, NBIS, APLD, IREN, CORZ, WULF, CIFR, HUT, and WYFI need deeper contract-level returns, customer concentration, cancellation terms, covenants, receivable quality, useful-life assumptions, and project-finance detail.
AMZN needs sharper AWS AI and custom-silicon profitability evidence; GOOGL needs backlog mix and Search AI monetization evidence; META needs an AI-to-ad and AI-to-FCF bridge; MSFT needs Azure AI and Copilot profitability detail.
DLR, EQIX, BTDR, DELL, SMCI, and CLS are relevant comparables or adjacent cash-conversion routes, but they are not included in the ranked basket because this page stays focused on owner-return financing pressure rather than every AI infrastructure supplier.