Who Talks About Neoclouds on Earnings Calls? Evidence From 36,283 Calls

Summary

“Neocloud”, the name for the GPU cloud companies that rent AI computing power, did not come up on a single earnings call held by a US-listed company in 2024. It first appeared in February 2025, and from July to September 2026 it was said on 64 calls, 1.94% of the quarter's 3,302. In October so far, 8 of 326 calls have used it.

The word belongs to the companies that sell to neoclouds, not to the neoclouds themselves. Backblaze, Penguin Solutions, Arista, Cisco, NetApp, Credo and Nvidia say it most, mostly to describe a customer group that sits next to the hyperscalers. CoreWeave, which says it is larger than the 15 largest neoclouds in North America and Europe combined, said it four times on six calls, each time about other providers.

Company speakers said it 475 times, analysts 122. On 154 of the 211 calls that used it, an executive said it first.

The tone changed in October. Blackstone's July call described its own neocloud investments; on its October call a Goldman Sachs analyst asked about “wider credit spreads and CDS levels” for neoclouds, and Lazard's chief executive said the risk of financial distress among some of them “is elevated”.

Abstract

We count the word “neocloud”, in any spelling (“neocloud”, “neo cloud”, “neo-cloud”, singular or plural), on 36,283 earnings calls held by 4,179 US-listed companies from 1 January 2024 to 26 October 2026, using the speaker-by-speaker transcripts in the Equibles earnings call archive. Calls are grouped by the calendar quarter in which they were held, and October 2026 is reported separately because the quarter is not over.

The word was said 613 times on 211 calls by 103 companies. No call used it in 2024. The share of calls rose from 0.13% in January to March 2025 to 1.94% in July to September 2026, and 25 companies used it for the first time in that quarter, the most so far. Technology companies used it on 7.18% of their calls last quarter, real estate companies on 3.93%, and healthcare, energy, basic materials and consumer staples companies never used it. In 227 of the 424 speaker turns that contain the word, the speaker also mentioned hyperscalers.

From zero to 2% of calls

The first company to say it was IREN (IREN $25.43 +2.11%), a bitcoin miner turning its sites into AI data centers, on its 12 February 2025 call, when Kent Draper described where demand for its liquid-cooled capacity was coming from.

“We're seeing, as I said, a range coming from various customer types, whether they're large hyperscalers, the Neo clouds, or enterprise customers as well.”

Kent Draper, IREN, earnings call, 12 February 2025

Six days later Arista Networks (ANET $177.24 +2.83%) chief executive Jayshree Ullal described the group to analysts on the company's 18 February 2025 call.

“We are witnessing the emergence of a new group of Tier 2 specialty cloud providers that aim to offer AI as a service with distinct features.”

Jayshree Ullal, chief executive, Arista Networks, earnings call, 18 February 2025

Four calls used the word in January to March 2025. The count roughly doubled in each of the next three quarters, dipped in January to March 2026, and reached 64 calls in July to September 2026.

The number of times it was said grew faster than the number of calls, from 8 mentions in January to March 2025 to 184 in July to September 2026, or 2.9 per call that used it.

The users keep coming back. 55 of the 103 companies have said it on more than one call, and 26 of the 40 that used it in April to June 2026 used it again the next quarter.

The suppliers say it, the neoclouds mostly don't

The companies that say “neocloud” most often sell storage, servers, networking or chips to them. Backblaze (BLZE $8.59 +3.00%), a cloud storage company, said it 68 times on five calls, 31 of them on one call in February 2026. Its chief executive put a number on the market it is chasing.

“We estimate that this neocloud demand for capacity tier storage represents a $14 billion market opportunity by 2031.”

Gleb Budman, chief executive, Backblaze, earnings call, 3 August 2026

Penguin Solutions (PENG $54.92 +2.83%) said it 41 times on six calls, 21 of them on 6 October 2026. Arista Networks has used it on seven calls, more than any other company. Cisco (CSCO $110.24 +3.51%), NetApp (NTAP $222.08 +3.06%), Credo Technology (CRDO $151.15 +2.62%) and Western Digital (WDC $356.13 +3.63%) all use it to name a customer group. Nvidia (NVDA $216.00 +2.39%) said it 14 times on its August 2026 call alone, where its chief financial officer described the group's growth and how Nvidia now helps finance it.

“Using NVIDIA DSX reference designs, our NeoCloud partners are bringing capacity online faster and at lower token cost. They are expected to exit the year with 8 gigawatts in total installed capacity, up from approximately 3 gigawatts at the end of 2025.”

Colette Kress, chief financial officer, Nvidia, earnings call, 26 August 2026

“NVIDIA provides a take-or-pay commitment on a portion of the facility's capacity, a minimum revenue guarantee that gives lenders the confidence to underwrite the project, and in exchange, we share in a portion of the NeoCloud's revenue earned above that floor.”

Colette Kress, chief financial officer, Nvidia, earnings call, 26 August 2026

The companies the label describes rarely use it. CoreWeave (CRWV $55.19 +1.76%) has held six calls since it listed in March 2025 and said the word on three of them, four times in all, always about a group it compares itself with.

“To put that in perspective, we added more power in Q2 than any single neocloud operates in total today, according to third-party estimates.”

Michael Intrator, chief executive, CoreWeave, earnings call, 11 August 2026

Nebius (NBIS $153.27 -3.45%) embraced the label once. On its call for January to March 2025 its chief technology officer and chief financial officer said it three times, measuring Nebius against “the other Neoclouds”. It has not used the word since, apart from a shareholder question read out by investor relations in November 2025.

“We believe we have a unique position among Neoclouds to finance our future growth efficiently.”

Tom Blackwell, chief financial officer, Nebius, earnings call for the first quarter of 2025

Who says it: executives describing customers

“Neocloud” is a word executives choose. Company speakers said it 475 times and analysts 122 times, and on 154 of the 211 calls an executive said it before any analyst did. The executive share has stayed between 70% and 81% of mentions in every half-year since the word appeared.

H2 2026 covers calls held from July to 26 October 2026. Another 16 mentions came from speakers whose role the transcript does not resolve, and the operator.

Most of the time the word sorts customers. In 227 of the 424 speaker turns that contain it, the speaker also mentioned hyperscalers, usually in a list such as “hyperscalers, neoclouds and enterprises”. Sovereign AI came up in 71 of those turns and enterprise customers in 148. Analysts use it to ask the same question from the other side: how much of a supplier's demand comes from this group, and how durable it is.

Where it spread: data centers, power and networks

Technology companies still account for most of the calls, 133 of 211. But the word has moved down the supply chain to the companies that house, power and connect the data centers.

From July to September 2026, data center, tower and fiber landlords Digital Realty (DLR $174.53 +1.25%), Equinix (EQIX $967.65 +1.32%), Iron Mountain (IRM $113.08 +2.84%), American Tower (AMT $188.28 -0.37%) and Uniti (UNIT $4.85 -4.34%) used it, as did power and cooling suppliers Bloom Energy (BE $203.92 +5.49%), Vertiv (VRT $199.78 +2.81%) and nVent (NVT $129.18 +3.01%), the power producer Talen Energy (TLN $337.78 +3.01%), and the network carriers Lumen (LUMN $4.43 -3.06%) and Cogent (CCOI $7.36 -1.60%). Uniti said it 11 times on its July call, more than any other company outside technology.

Capital markets mixes Goldman Sachs and Lazard with companies that came from crypto and now host AI computing, such as IREN, Galaxy Digital and Ionic Digital.

October: the word reaches the banks

Banks and asset managers came to the word late, and with a different question. On Blackstone (BX $119.06 +0.92%)'s July 2026 call, neoclouds were an investment theme.

“We think this business has the potential to scale quite significantly over time as the first neocloud for TPUs.”

Steve Schwarzman, chairman, Blackstone, earnings call, 23 July 2026, on its new AI cloud built with Google

Three months later, on its 22 October call, the first question that used the word was about credit.

“Obviously, we've seen wider credit spreads and CDS levels move up for neoclouds and to some extent, some of the more established players.”

Alex Blostein, analyst, Goldman Sachs, on Blackstone's earnings call, 22 October 2026

“For the neoclouds, I think the key is, you know, will they be able to deliver on their compute promises?”

Blackstone, earnings call, 22 October 2026

Before October, almost every financial company that used the word came from crypto and now hosts AI computing, or invests in data centers, as Blackstone and DigitalBridge do. In October it reached Goldman Sachs, CME Group and Lazard for the first time. On Goldman Sachs (GS $893.28 +2.01%)'s 13 October call, the chief executive used it to explain why financing rates differ across AI data center projects.

“There's a big difference from something that's really generated to serve a hyperscaler versus some of the neoclouds.”

David Solomon, chief executive, Goldman Sachs, earnings call, 13 October 2026

CME Group (CME $308.06 +0.77%) said on 21 October that early interest in a planned futures contract on computing prices, based on the Silicon Data Index and awaiting regulatory review, was coming from neocloud players, data center operators and banks. A day later Lazard (LAZ $37.70 +1.32%)'s chief executive linked the group to its restructuring business.

“I think the risk of financial distress among the independent frontier labs and or some of the neocloud providers in the AI ecosystem is elevated.”

Peter Orszag, chief executive, Lazard, earnings call, 22 October 2026

Suppliers started choosing among them on the same day. Western Digital, which in August said it saw “increasing demand from neoclouds”, described its approach on its 22 October call.

“In terms of how we look at the neocloud segment, obviously we are very diligent in looking at the strategic neoclouds that we want to engage with, those that we think have a very strong balance sheet, have underpinned by a very good end customer base as well.”

Western Digital, earnings call, 22 October 2026

The early calls had already raised the question. On Core Scientific (CORZ $13.51 +3.13%)'s 26 February 2025 call, the third ever to use the word, an analyst asked about “the long-term health of the AI Neocloud business model”, and the chief executive answered that “there will be only a few winners in this industry”.

Methodology

Source: speaker-by-speaker transcripts of earnings calls in the Equibles earnings call archive. Only calls classified as earnings calls are counted, not conferences, investor days or other events.

Sample: every company with a US listing that held an earnings call with a transcript from 1 January 2024 to 26 October 2026, 36,283 calls by 4,179 companies. Foreign companies with a US listing, such as Nebius, are included.

Word: “neocloud” matched as a whole word in any capitalization, written as one word, two words or with a hyphen, singular or plural. Speech recognition writes it all three ways.

Duplicates: two calls are excluded because they repeat another call in the sample, a sponsor's call stored a second time under one of its funds and one call stored twice for the same company.

Who said it: the speaker's role in the transcript. Executives, chairs and investor relations staff count as company speakers. Quotes whose speaker role the transcript does not resolve are attributed to the company.

Periods: the calendar quarter in which the call was held. Where a transcript carries only the end of the fiscal period instead of the call date, which happens mostly for foreign companies, we count the call in the following quarter, when such calls are held.

Sectors and industries: the company's classification on Equibles.

Limitations

A word count measures attention, not money. A company can sell heavily to these providers and call them “AI clouds”, “GPU clouds”, “specialty clouds” or by name, none of which we count. CoreWeave and Nebius rarely say “neocloud”, so a count of the word understates how often these companies come up.

The sample is a few hundred calls per quarter for most sectors, so a sector's share can move a lot on a handful of calls; real estate's 3.93% last quarter is 7 calls. October 2026 covers only the first 326 calls of the reporting season, so its share is not comparable with a full quarter. The speaker role is missing for some turns, mostly on recent calls.

Conclusion

In under two years “neocloud” went from an analyst's term to a word 64 US-listed companies used on their calls last quarter. It is mostly the vocabulary of the companies that sell to these providers, chipmakers, network and storage suppliers, and lately data center landlords and power companies, while the largest provider says it only to describe its smaller rivals. In October the same word started to come up on bank and asset manager calls, this time next to credit spreads, restructuring and balance sheets.

Every company's earnings call transcripts on Equibles come with speaker names and roles, and the free Equibles MCP server can count any word or phrase across a company's recent calls, so an AI agent can run the same check on a single stock. Our earlier study, Agentic AI Has Overtaken Generative AI on Earnings Calls, applies the same count to how S&P 500 companies describe AI.