Talk about cloud computing, and most conversations quickly circle back to the usual giants – the hyperscalers. Names like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet tend to dominate the narrative, and for good reason. Their scale, infrastructure, and reach have long defined what the cloud looks like.
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Explore CWVX for 2X leverage on CRWVBut the hyperscalers are hardly the only game in town. The neoclouds, the array of smaller, specialist companies that provide cloud services at smaller scales, are building a growing niche. Neocloud companies build brands by supporting specific applications or offering regional compliance – and those advantages are opening doors for the neoclouds to move into the enterprise sector’s compute landscape.
Watching the neocloud space from Bank of America, analyst Tal Liani outlines why these companies are carving out a distinct role in the AI ecosystem.
“Neoclouds sit at the opposite end of the spectrum from hyperscalers, with architectures purpose-built for GPU-driven AI workloads. Instead of general-purpose data centers, they focus on rapidly deploying GPU-dense clusters optimized for high-throughput, baremetal performance. They win on speed, specialization, and hardware integration, though their footprints are smaller and their platforms less comprehensive than hyperscalers. They aren’t trying to replicate hyperscale offerings, but rather they are creating a category defined by GPU density, speed, and AI-specific performance,” Liani wrote.
With that backdrop in mind, Liani has pinpointed two neocloud stocks he believes are worth attention right now. TipRanks data shows both are also Buy-rated across the Street, adding further weight to the bullish case.
Nebius Group (NBIS)
We’ll start with the Dutch-based company Nebius Group, a tech firm that specializes in AI infrastructure development. Nebius was originally part of Yandex, emerging from the Dutch parent company after it sold off its Russian assets and rebranded to focus on AI infrastructure.
The company bills itself as the ‘ultimate cloud,’ based on the latest GPUs from Nvidia – thousands in any one cluster – and capable of providing a wide range of cloud-based services. Nebius supports the tools that AI developers want the most: computing capacity, storage, and cloud platforms. The company has organized itself around its R&D teams, allowing experience-based development to guide it in meeting the needs of the fast-growing AI sector.
Nebius’s unified AI-capable platform covers everything from data and model training to the full deployment of AI systems. With AI quickly moving to become a general-purpose tech, applicable to a wide range of fields, this ability to support any AI function is vital for a cloud provider. Nebius has leveraged that to build itself into an important player on the global AI scene, serving AI builders and enterprise clients worldwide, in industries from healthcare to robotics to finance to retail to entertainment.
As an important part of its core business, Nebius operates data centers with large-scale GPU clusters. As noted, the company works closely with Nvidia, which announced earlier this month that it will invest $2 billion in Nebius. Nebius has data centers in both Europe and the US – specifically, in Finland, in Paris, in Kansas City, and in New Jersey. At the beginning of this month, Nebius received approval for its ‘AI Factory,’ a 1.2 gigawatt data center facility near Kansas City – this facility will be its largest in the US.
Nebius saw strong top-line growth last year, and in its 4Q25 report – the last released – showed revenue of $227.7 million. This figure missed the forecast by $15 million – but it was up almost 547% year-over-year. At its bottom line, Nebius reported an adjusted net loss in Q4 of $173 million.
When we check in with Bank of America’s Tal Liani on this stock, we find that the analyst starts his review with Nebius’ fast growth, and extrapolates from there. Liani says, “Nebius operates in one of the fastest-growing segments of cloud computing, the AI Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) market. By building and running large data centers, Nebius allows companies to train and run AI models without having to invest in their own infrastructure. This represents a huge opportunity. Total IaaS TAM, including AI IaaS, is projected to surpass $419bn by 2028, driven by rapidly increasing model complexity and accelerating enterprise adoption of AI. As one of the few purpose-built platforms designed specifically for GPU-dense distributed workloads, and a customer base that includes Microsoft and Meta, we believe Nebius is strategically positioned to capture share.”
These comments support the analyst’s Buy rating, and his $150 price target suggests that the shares will gain 30% over the one-year timeframe. (To watch Liani’s track record, click here)
The 9 recent analyst reviews on NBIS shares split 8 to 1 in favor of Buy over Hold, supporting a Strong Buy consensus rating. The stock is currently selling for $115.09, and its $166.11 average target price implies an upside of 44% by this time next year. (See NBIS stock forecast)
CoreWeave (CRWV)
CoreWeave, the next neocloud stock on our list of BofA picks, was founded in New Jersey back in 2017. Today, the company provides its customers with a top-tier cloud‑based software platform that can support the best of the market’s current array of AI services and products. The company is forward‑looking, and its platform is also capable of powering the coming generation in AI tech. The company has only been around for 8 and a half years – but in that time, it has built itself into a $46 billion leader in the neocloud niche. Originally launched as Atlantic Crypto, a cryptocurrency mining operation, the firm pivoted away from crypto mining to focus on GPU‑based cloud infrastructure as AI demand surged, renaming itself CoreWeave and leveraging its GPU expertise into AI compute services.
CoreWeave’s cloud platform is built to be ‘AI-native,’ capable of high-speed applications with solutions for AI training and the necessary reinforcement learning; for agentic AI and the supportive agent development; and even advanced VFX rendering capabilities. The company’s security features, designed to meet the latest standards, have been built into the platform directly from the start, as a ‘silicon-up’ feature.
When we look at CoreWeave’s financial results, we should keep in mind that the company went public just a year ago, in March of 2025. Since then, the firm has released four quarterly reports – and has shown steadily increasing revenues.
In the most recent report, covering 4Q25, CoreWeave had revenues of $1.57 billion, beating the forecast by $40 million and growing 110% year-over-year. At the bottom line, CoreWeave saw a net loss of ($0.89) per share, which missed the forecast by $0.21. CoreWeave had $4.13 billion in available cash and liquid assets at the end of 2025, a favorable comparison to the $2.04 billion available one year previously.
The Bank of America view here, set forth by analyst Tal Liani, outlines a clear set of factors supportive of future strength. Liani writes, “We believe CoreWeave is well positioned to capture share of the $79bn AI infrastructure as a service (Iaas) market, given 1) sustained demand for AI compute; 2) its proprietary software optimized for AI workloads; and 3) strategic alliances with top-tier AI-native companies such as Nvidia and OpenAI. While risks exist, we believe the demand trajectory is solid in the foreseeable future. With Agentic AI pushing up infrastructure needs, the company helps customers overcome supply, capacity and power shortages and we do not see the capacity demand/supply imbalance easing before 2029. We value CoreWeave at 21x our CY27E EV/EBIT, above the peer average of 16x.”
The analyst quantifies his stance on CoreWeave with a Buy rating, and a $100 price target that points toward a one-year upside potential of 14.5%.
Overall, CoreWeave claims a Moderate Buy consensus rating on the Street, based on 23 recent analyst reviews that include 13 Buys, 9 Holds, and 1 Sell. The stock is priced at $87.58 and its $112.81 average target price implies a 29% gain in the year ahead. (See CRWV stock forecast)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.