Roth Capital Partners believes Core Scientific looks more valuable as a potential deal with CoreWeave is in danger of falling apart. The investment firm upgraded shares to buy from neutral. Analyst Darren Aftahi also raised his 12-month price target to $23.50 from $17, implying a potential gain of 32%. Core Scientific is one of the largest owners and operators of digital infrastructure, allowing high-performance computing, or HPC, use cases like AI workloads and bitcoin mining. The company’s data centers across six U.S. states have a total contracted power capacity of around 1.3GW. CORZ YTD mountain CORZ YTD chart Aftahi’s upgrade comes after CoreWeave said it would not raise its acquisition price for Core Scientific and called it a “nice to have, not a need to have,” lowering the chances of a deal between the two companies. “We now assume no CORZ–CRWV deal and no renegotiation,” he said. In that case, Core Scientific has now reverted “to a standalone thesis to contract out its additional power pipeline to other tenants,” the analyst wrote. “We pivot to a standalone CORZ that leases its power pipeline primarily for HPC. We are thus raising CORZ to Buy with a $23.50 PT (from $17) on a mix of discounted NPV [net present value] to its CRWV lease, ~700MW of uncontracted power and its remaining BTC power, as well as weight for recent $/watt M & A transactions,” Aftahi said. Shares of Core Scientific have surged 27% this year. ( Learn the best 2026 strategies from inside the NYSE with Josh Brown and others at CNBC PRO Live. Tickets and info here . )
