AI Infrastructure Companies Shed About $80 Billion Amid Financing Pressures
Key Facts
CoreWeave, Nebius, Oracle and Dell lost a combined roughly $80 billion in market value during trading on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, according to an estimate published by Reuters during the session. The losses among companies tied to AI infrastructure came amid a selloff the agency linked to U.S. inflation data and tighter financing conditions. Investors' concerns focused on borrowing costs and the returns and revenue associated with AI spending. Reuters also cited the substantial gains previously recorded by stocks benefiting from the technology boom as another factor behind the selling pressure. The selloff put the cost of financing expansion in these businesses at the forefront of market attention, alongside concerns about the returns generated by that spending.
Data center operator CoreWeave posted the steepest share decline among the companies included in the loss estimate, falling 16% during trading, according to Reuters. Shares of AI infrastructure provider Nebius fell 11% during the same session as pressure spread across companies operating in the sector. Oracle shares dropped 9%, joining the selloff in companies benefiting from the AI boom. Dell Technologies shares fell 11%, matching Nebius' decline during the trading covered by the agency's report. The losses thus encompassed a data center operator and an infrastructure provider alongside Oracle and Dell, as Reuters attributed the declines to financing pressures and the stocks' earlier gains.
Underlying the pressure, a release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the seasonally adjusted increase in the consumer price index accelerated to 0.6% in September, compared with a 0.4% rise in August. The headline index rose 3.7% year on year in September, according to the bureau's unadjusted figures. The index excluding food and energy rose 0.3% month on month on a seasonally adjusted basis during the same month. Gasoline was a major driver of the monthly price increase, accounting for more than half of the rise in the headline consumer price index. The reading was central to Reuters' explanation of the selloff, which the agency linked to tighter financing conditions and the borrowing costs facing companies benefiting from the AI boom.
On Wednesday evening, after the market closed, Reuters separately published details of Anthropic's revenue growth, citing participants in an investor meeting. The agency said the company's revenue rose to $16.8 billion in the third quarter of 2026, with revenue continuing to increase across the quarters covered by the report. The company had recorded revenue of $11.6 billion in the second quarter of the same year, according to the participants cited by Reuters. Its first-quarter revenue stood at $4.7 billion, before rising in the following quarter and then the third quarter. The figures were disclosed in the evening, after the selloff in infrastructure stocks during trading, which Reuters had at the time linked to inflation and tighter financing conditions.
In the memory sector, Micron had announced quarterly revenue of $54.23 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2026 before the selloff, according to the company's earnings release. The company compared that total with revenue of $41.46 billion in the third fiscal quarter of the same year, marking an increase from the previous quarter. Micron also issued guidance for the first fiscal quarter of 2027, projecting revenue of $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion. Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra said in the earnings release: "We expect a stronger fiscal year in 2027," expressing management's assessment of the company's upcoming performance. The forecast accompanied the quarterly revenue announcement, which showed growth in Micron's business before the pressure on shares of companies tied to the AI boom.
Looking ahead, the Federal Reserve's calendar includes a Federal Open Market Committee meeting on 27 and 28 October 2026, following the selloff linked to financing pressures and inflation. The meeting falls before the next consumer price release, scheduled for November according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' official calendar. That release is set to cover consumer price movements in October 2026, following September's reading, when the monthly increase in the headline index accelerated. The bureau set 10 November 2026 as the publication date for the next release in its consumer price index announcement schedule. The release will be published at 08:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, according to the time announced by the bureau.