| It's been a down-and-up ride for CoreWeave since it listed on Nasdaq. The company, the largest of a new crop of cloud-computing players focused on AI, had to shrink its offering in March amid lackluster demand. And its shares didn't move much in their first weeks of trading. But its stock is up by about fourfold since then. That's a testament to the AI boom's durability. And it's giving CoreWeave new financial firepower to wield as it seeks to become a bigger competitor to the world's largest cloud-computing businesses. CoreWeave on Monday said it agreed to acquire Core Scientific in an all-stock deal worth about $9 billion. If it closes as the company anticipates late this year, it would relieve CoreWeave of about $10 billion in obligations to lease data centers from Core Scientific. It would also vastly expand the footprint of data-center assets the company owns. That sounds like a big win for CoreWeave, whose executives also pointed to efficiency gains and infrastructure-financing opportunities that would lower its funding costs. But Wall Street is still worried about what the deal means for CoreWeave's richly valued stock. At least two brokers have downgraded the shares, which are now down around 6% since the deal was announced. Core Scientific shares also slid 17% on Monday. | 
