AI Vocabulary · 02 AI Infrastructure

What is Neocloud?

A cloud provider that specialises in renting out GPUs for AI, such as CoreWeave, Nebius, Lambda or Crusoe.

Intermediate

Neocloud is an industry term without a standard definition. It describes young providers whose main business is renting GPU capacity for training and inference, often on multi-year contracts with large AI labs. Synergy Research counted nine such companies among the 40 largest cloud providers by infrastructure revenue in the second quarter of 2026.

Much of their capacity exists on contract and is still being built. CoreWeave reported 3.7 GW of contracted power at the end of June 2026 and 1.5 GW in operation. Neoclouds often list lower prices per GPU-hour than hyperscalers and finance their growth largely with debt and convertible bonds.

Why it matters for you

For a team that needs raw GPU time, a neocloud can be cheaper and quicker to get. You deal with a younger provider with fewer managed services and a higher financial risk.

Own it

Compare the price per GPU-hour, the network between the GPUs, support and exit terms. Keep your workloads portable, so that a provider's trouble does not stop your product.

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