Crusoe CEO Says Neocloud Selloff 'Exaggerated' as AI Compute Demand Remains Strong

Chase Lochmiller, CEO of data center developer and AI compute provider Crusoe, said on Tuesday at the Bloomberg Invest conference in Dallas that the recent selloff in so-called “neoclouds” has been “exaggerated,” describing much of the market anxiety as an overreaction. He also said rival CoreWeave has made “some very good deals” and is in a solid position.

Lochmiller said Crusoe continues to see “tremendous” demand for AI compute that is “both deep and broad.” Crusoe has contracts with Meta Platforms, Oracle, and Google, and sells AI cloud computing capacity alongside CoreWeave to meet surging enterprise AI demand.

CoreWeave, an AI compute provider, has been at the center of growing concern over the resilience of the AI infrastructure boom and billions of dollars in borrowed financing. In October 2026, its bonds fell to distressed levels and its shares dropped more than 30%. Lochmiller’s comments were seen as an attempt to ease anxiety in the sector.

Founded in 2018, Crusoe is known for developing large-scale data center projects, including the flagship Texas site for the Stargate project involving OpenAI and Oracle. In September 2026, Crusoe raised over $3 billion in a funding round at a valuation of roughly $30 billion, attracting investors such as Nvidia and Salesforce. However, people familiar with the matter said some tech companies have questioned the startup’s ability to keep large, resource-intensive data centers online. Earlier in 2026, Oracle and OpenAI decided against leasing additional capacity from Crusoe in Abilene, Texas, with Microsoft later taking over that space.