Core Scientific's 10-Q counts its backlog in megawatts, not $24 billion

CoreWeave▼−8.55% — CoreWeave, down 8.55 percent today, the AI-cloud operator behind every dollar of Core Scientific's▼−0.70% — Core Scientific, down 0.70 percent today colocation revenue, reported a blowout third quarter, settling the easy risk over the data-center landlord's single tenant. ¹³ CORZ rose about 11% with the news. ¹ The hard risk is arithmetic. The $24 billion of "potential contracted revenue" anchoring the stock story comes from a July 28 release, not the Form 10-Q filed on November 5↗. ²³

The filing measures the backlog in megawatts

The 10-Q tracks signed commitments as Leased Customer Power Capacity: power committed under executed contracts, whether or not service has begun. ³ At September 30 that was 1,120 megawatts leased against 485 billing; the gap is capacity still under construction, including roughly 530 megawatts leased to chipmaker AMD▼−10.90% — AMD, down 10.90 percent today and a neocloud, a smaller AI-cloud operator renting out GPU capacity, with revenue beginning in phases from 2027. ³ AMD's right to reserve a further 1,925 megawatts is, in the filing's words, not a binding lease commitment. ³

The only dollar schedule leaves out the largest blocks

The 10-Q's one schedule of customer receipts is $7,484,422 thousand (about $7.5 billion) of future operating-lease payments on leases that have commenced, undiscounted as lease accounting rules require for that table. ³⁴ Two blocks sit outside it, both named in the same filing: $1.8 billion of CoreWeave payments on leases that have not commenced, and all of the AMD leases. ³ The $24 billion rests on exactly the leases the table excludes ³.

CoreWeave's quarter changed the tenant's credit, not the calendar

The market paid for the safer tenant: CoreWeave's revenue backlog reached $132.5 billion. ¹ Its chief executive expects about $9 billion of customer prepayments and deposits within three months. ¹ Core Scientific carries the build while it finishes: it sold $3.3 billion of 7.75% senior secured notes due 2031 this spring↗, and total debt has roughly quadrupled since December. ¹³ None of that moves a commencement date, and the AMD buildings deliver from 2027. ³

Only the $700 million is revenue arriving today

Billing 485 megawatts represented more than $700 million of average annualized colocation GAAP revenue in the third-quarter release↗, and CoreWeave stands behind 84% of nine-month revenue. ⁵³ A signed megawatt pays nothing until the buildings behind it are delivered; a commenced lease pays rent this quarter. Anyone valuing this landlord must pick a population, a term and a discount rate the filing declined to choose.

The clock has a first tick: the notes pay their first interest on November 15, 2026 ³. Principal amortization, at an initial 11.5% a year, waits on rent commencement under the related leases, and the AMD leases begin delivering revenue in phases from 2027. ³ That is the window the $700 million run-rate has to grow into ³.