AI cloud computing company CoreWeave is exploring the use of financial derivatives as a potential hedge against a future drop in memory and storage chip prices, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Background

The move underscores how deeply the AI boom has entangled cloud providers with the volatile chip market. To lock in supply amid soaring demand, cloud operators including CoreWeave have signed long-term agreements with memory and storage makers such as Micron and SanDisk.

Many of these deals guarantee suppliers a price floor for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and storage chips. However, the arrangement cuts both ways: it protects chipmakers from a downturn, but leaves cloud companies like CoreWeave exposed if prices fall and they are stuck paying well above the going rate.

As a result, CoreWeave executives have held discussions about ways to hedge against a slide in memory chip stocks that would occur if prices drop in the future, the source said. The discussions are in their early stages and the company has not yet executed any hedges.

Potential Hedging Strategies

Among the possibilities discussed are put options — contracts that give the owner the right, but not the obligation, to sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price in the future — and potentially other derivative instruments.

Memory and flash storage prices have spiked in recent months. Historically, memory has been a cyclical industry and elevated prices often fall after new manufacturing capacity becomes active. Memory companies such as SK Hynix and Micron have indicated they expect fully ramped up new manufacturing capacity in early 2028.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.