- Neocloud revenue is expected to nearly octuple by 2030, bubble concerns notwithstanding
- The market is currently dominated by a handful of big players
- Consolidation is expected to sweep the neocloud arena as competing startups either fail or are acquired
Three years ago, you’d be forgiven for not knowing who CoreWeave was. But in the blink of an eye, the company and its ilk have grown the nascent neocloud market to an expected $23 billion in 2025. If Synergy Research Group is to be believed, the good times are just getting started.
Synergy is now predicting that neocloud revenue will grow at an annual average of 69% to hit nearly $180 billion by 2030.
But wait, you might say, what about the notorious AI bubble? Won’t that get in the way of all this explosive growth when it bursts? Well, maybe. But we’re not there yet.
“There is a lot of talk out there about a potential bubble, and for sure there are a few signs that might indicate we're heading into that world. However, one huge difference between now and the Dot Com bubble is that AI is being driven by real customer demand,” Synergy’s Chief Analyst John Dinsdale told Fierce, echoing recent comments from Gartner's Will Sommer. “The Dot Com bubble was largely characterized by slideware, unreal expectations and unbelievable business models.”
Right, so who wins the biggest slice of that massive-and-still-growing revenue pie?
In terms of market share and revenue, right now it’s CoreWeave (duh), Crusoe, Lambda, Nebius and OpenAI.
CoreWeave, for instance, brought in $2.1 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025. Lambda, meanwhile, posted more than $250 million in revenue over the same period, according to The Information. Nebius reported $156 million in revenue in the first half of 2025 and raised its guidance to call for an annualized run-rate revenue (ARR) outlook of $900 million to $1.1 billion.
Dinsdale said there’s a long tail of smaller players – including the likes of Hut8, BitDeer, Fluidstack, NScale and Together AI – but right now the scale of these contenders relegates them to “the realm of background noise,” Dinsdale said.
As is expected to happen in the agentic AI market, Dinsdale said it’s only a matter of time before consolidation sweeps through the neocloud arena. And it’s already beginning to happen – CoreWeave’s acquisition of Core Scientific is one of the opening shots here.
“For sure there will be consolidation. Many [neocloud] startups won't make it and many will be acquired or somehow absorbed,” Dinsdale concluded. “That is pretty much the nature of the beast for startups.”