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NewsMaterial3 min readDisconfirmAI Editorial

Independent Tech Analyst Richard Windsor: AI New Cloud Valuation Anchored to Unbuilt Data Centers; Confidence Reversal Can Become a Vicious Cycle

Radio Free Mobile founder Richard Windsor analyzes the financing vulnerability of AI infrastructure companies: new cloud valuations are built on data centers that have not yet been constructed. When Anthropic's Q3 2026 revenue falls short of expectations and U.S. Treasury yields rise, shaken confidence may drive up financing costs and weaken repayment capacity, creating a self-reinforcing downward cycle. Jensen Huang’s comments regarding CoreWeave temporarily restored confidence, but Windsor believes the Q3 earnings season will be the critical test. He also disclosed his position in Meta Platforms.

2026-10-16 16:11 GMT+8

Richard Windsor, founder of independent tech research firm Radio Free Mobile, put forward a core judgment regarding AI infrastructure financing: in financial markets, confidence itself is a mechanism. It does not matter whether Jensen Huang’s comments about CoreWeave are correct or not; what matters is that by making them, he may have restored enough confidence to allow those expected outcomes to come true.

Windsor traced the specific chain of wobbles in confidence. First, Anthropic: the company held a pre-IPO investor meeting at which it appeared that Q3 2026 revenues were lighter than expected. Going into the anticipated IPO, expectations were that Anthropic would increase revenues by 10x in 2026 such that the annual run rate by the end of the year would be over $100 billion. However, it looks like revenue in Q3 2026 was around $16.8 billion, which, taking into account the growth so far in 2026, leads one to estimate that the ARR for Q3 2026 is closer to $73 billion. This implies that growth is slowing more quickly than expected, meaning that everyone is starting to wonder about demand.

Second, the United States government: its unwillingness to cut the fiscal deficit is causing the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds to rise. When governments spend more than they earn, it tends to be inflationary, which means that savers become more concerned with the declining purchasing power of fiat currency from inflation and demand a higher return to compensate. Government bonds are the foundation from which all other costs of capital are based, meaning that the cost to issue bonds and the return that investors demand from equity all rise.

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Windsor argues that the neo-clouds are hit the hardest because their valuations remain predicted on data centers that they have not yet built or paid for. Although they all have massive order books, once market confidence wobbles, financing costs rise, repayment capacity drops, and confidence deteriorates further, forming a vicious cycle. He believes the end result could be a collapse much like Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Jensen Huang’s intervention—Nvidia owns 10% of CoreWeave and has agreed to purchase any unsold capacity—with the statement “CoreWeave’s strength is improving every day,” temporarily restored some confidence. But Windsor makes it clear whether this is enough remains to be seen.

Windsor points out that the current economic environment for selling AI compute capacity is superb, with returns of 50% to 85% per year on offer, but you can only earn this if you have capacity already built to sell. However, customer concentration is still very high, with OpenAI and Anthropic being responsible for most of the deals being struck, meaning that if something goes wrong with one of them, it could trigger a widespread collapse. The upcoming Q3 2026 reporting season will be a key test.

Windsor disclosed at the end of the article that he holds a position in Meta Platforms, believing its valuation is relatively low, with a target price of around $770. He expressed his hope that Meta will announce through its newly formed enterprise business unit that it will start selling compute capacity to the market.

Sources

  • radiofreemobile.com↗
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