Kroger trimmed its annual sales guidance amid fierce competition for grocery spending. Oracle shares moved higher after the software company's results featured better-than-expected cloud revenue on strong AI demand. Restoration Hardware shares were also on the move after the home furnishing retailer's quarterly earnings beat despite a weaker housing market and consumer spending environment.
CoreWeave partners with AdaniConneX for first India data centers
CoreWeave Inc. announced it will establish its first data centers in India through a partnership with AdaniConneX Pvt., a joint venture between Adani Group and EdgeConneX. The AI cloud-computing provider will utilize 240 megawatts of capacity at AdaniConneX's Taloja campus in Navi Mumbai, with an option to expand to 480 megawatts, and plans to open an office in India. The total investment is projected to reach multiple billions of dollars throughout the project's duration, with the first data centers scheduled to begin operations in mid-2028. CoreWeave will install Nvidia Corp. Vera Rubin chips at the facilities for tasks including training and operating models, managing reasoning functions, and supporting AI agents. The move follows CoreWeave's initial Asian entry in August with projects in Indonesia, and comes after CEO Mike Intrator said last month the company is largely sold out of capacity; CoreWeave reported approximately 4.2 gigawatts of contracted power in August.
CRWV · Capital · Positive CoreWeave announces multi-billion-dollar India data center investment via AdaniConneX partnership, expanding its capacity footprint.
AdaniConneX · Demand · Positive AdaniConneX secures CoreWeave as anchor tenant for 240MW at its Taloja campus, with expansion option to 480MW.
Adani Group · Capital · Positive Adani Group's JV AdaniConneX lands CoreWeave as a major data center tenant with multi-billion-dollar investment.
NVDA · Demand · Positive CoreWeave will install Nvidia Vera Rubin chips at its new India facilities, representing product demand for Nvidia.
Google Cloud and Mysten Labs to jointly develop VAA, a proof-of-behavior platform for AI agents
Mysten Labs, the developer of Sui, announced on October 6 a joint development plan with Google Cloud. The two will build Verifiable Agent Arbiter, or VAA, a platform that uses blockchain to prove that AI agents acted within the scope of the authority granted to them. VAA links the operations an agent is permitted to perform, its actual actions, and their outcomes into a record, so that counterparties and auditors can verify the record independently of the system that ran the agent. Instructions given to the AI, its outputs, its use of external tools, and decisions based on internal rules are stored privately in customer-managed Google Cloud storage, while cryptographic proofs corresponding to the records are stored on Walrus, a data storage platform, with Sui handling the management and linkage of those proofs. In addition to handling disputes in business-to-business transactions and investigating the causes of suspicious operations, the plan also includes integration with Sui's mechanism for AI agents to pay usage fees for external services under the x402 payment standard.
Cramer Says Microsoft's AI Data Center Spending Is Finally Paying Off
Jim Cramer said on the September 30 episode of Mad Money that Microsoft's massive artificial intelligence investment is entering a new phase as the company begins turning its data-center buildout into higher revenue. Cramer noted Copilot now has 30 million users and growing, Azure is accelerating rather than contracting, and Microsoft is beginning to recoup its monster data center investment, which he compared to the payback period Nvidia's Jensen Huang once described for his semiconductors. In its fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft Cloud revenue increased 27% to $59.3 billion, while Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43%, and commercial remaining performance obligations rose 84% to $678 billion, including a 25% increase excluding OpenAI. CFO Amy Hood said on September 9 that Microsoft had reduced dock-to-live times for infrastructure by more than 50% over the year, even as capital expenditures reached $41 billion in the June quarter and first-quarter fiscal 2027 spending is expected to exceed $50 billion. Microsoft Cloud's gross margin fell to 65% in the June quarter, and the company generated $19.6 billion of free cash flow while paying $35.8 billion for property and equipment, leaving margins and cash flow worth watching as spending continues to rise.
Artificial Intelligence › AI Applications & Copilots ▲Capital
Artificial Intelligence › AI Data Center & Build-out ▲Capital
MSFT · Capital · Positive Cramer says Microsoft's AI data-center investment is finally paying off as Azure accelerates and Cloud revenue grows 27% to $59.3B, with RPO up 84% to $678B.
Unauthorized Access Hits SoftBank Subsidiary IDC Frontier, Municipal and Corporate Websites Unreachable
IDC Frontier, a SoftBank subsidiary that provides cloud services, announced on the 7th that it suffered unauthorized access by a third party, causing an outage in its IDCF Cloud service for municipalities and businesses. The outage occurred around 3:40 a.m. that day, leaving some services unavailable. The company said it received an external ransomware attack, and the cloud management platform automatically executed a shutdown. The company has not disclosed details of its service customers, but numerous websites, including those of Ibaraki Prefecture, the city of Kodaira in Tokyo, Jiji Press, and Tobu Zoo, became impossible to view or update. To prevent secondary damage and data leaks, the company has cut off its network and is working to identify the detailed intrusion route while rushing to set up an alternative environment.
IDC Frontier Inc. · Regulation · Negative IDC Frontier itself suffered the unauthorized access and ransomware attack, forcing a network shutdown and service outage.
9434.JP · Regulation · Negative Its subsidiary IDC Frontier was hit by unauthorized access and ransomware, creating regulatory/legal exposure for SoftBank Corp.
9984.JP · Regulation · Negative Subsidiary IDC Frontier suffered a ransomware/unauthorized-access breach, exposing SoftBank Group to legal and regulatory fallout.
Nvidia-backed Lambda raising $4B pre-IPO at $14.5B valuation
Nvidia-backed cloud computing firm Lambda is raising as much as $4 billion in the final round of fundraising before its planned initial public offering, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the matter. The round values the company at $14.5 billion excluding the amount raised and is led by Blackstone and Coatue Management. Lambda is targeting an IPO in 2027, according to a letter sent to the company's limited partners that was viewed by the Journal, and its backlog rose to $50 billion in September from $15 billion in June. A Lambda spokesman declined to comment to the Journal. Lambda, which calls itself a superintelligence cloud company, develops AI cloud infrastructure, was founded in 2012, and is based in California, competing against other neoclouds such as Nebius, Nscale, CoreWeave, and IREN.
IREN Pivots Bitcoin Data Center Capacity to AI Cloud With Microsoft Deal
IREN Limited reported its fiscal 2026 results and is repurposing its sizable Bitcoin-focused data center capacity toward AI compute workloads, underpinned by new multi-year AI Cloud agreements and ongoing contract expansions with major customers including Microsoft. Among the recent announcements, the five year, US$9,700 million Microsoft AI cloud services contract and the successful delivery of the first 50MW "Horizon 1" deployment are most relevant, anchoring IREN's contracted AI Cloud ARR targets and showing that at least part of its large power and data center footprint is now earning recurring revenue. IREN's narrative projects $13.6 billion revenue and $1.6 billion earnings by 2029, requiring 168.0% yearly revenue growth and about a $2.3 billion earnings increase from -$702.6 million today, and yields a $79.03 fair value, a 95% upside to its current price. Before this news, the most optimistic analysts were assuming revenue could reach about US$25.6 billion by 2029. The pivot carries the risk that heavy capex, debt-funded GPU build outs and still-high crypto exposure could strain cash flow if AI demand or contract renewals underperform.
IREN · Capital · Negative The pivot carries risk that heavy capex and debt-funded GPU build outs could strain cash flow if AI demand or contract renewals underperform.
IREN · Demand · Positive IREN signed a five-year US$9.7 billion Microsoft AI cloud services contract and delivered its first 50MW Horizon 1 deployment, anchoring contracted AI Cloud ARR.
MSFT · Demand · Positive Microsoft is the counterparty to the five-year US$9.7 billion AI cloud services contract with IREN, securing AI compute capacity.
BTC · Supply · Negative IREN is repurposing its Bitcoin-focused data center capacity toward AI compute workloads, reducing capacity dedicated to Bitcoin mining.