CoreWeave의 neocloud 경쟁자인 Nebius는 2027년까지 GPU 용량을 모두 매진했으나, 확장을 위해 $250 billion의 자금 조달 과제에 직면해 있습니다.
Nebius has a demand problem of the best kind: there may not be enough capacity to go around. At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference, management disclosed that customer interest now extends into the first and second quarters of 2028, with individual clients seeking tens of thousands of vGPUs and GPUs. More remarkably, the company reports it could sell its entire 2027 capacity today—a statement that fundamentally reframes the investment thesis. The question is no longer whether demand will materialize, but whether Nebius can build fast enough to meet it.
The pricing data corroborates this strong order book. Nebius's first Blackwell capacity auction cleared 15% above the previous price record, while short-term deals are negotiating at $40 million to $50 million per megawatt, compared to $20 million to $25 million for medium-term contracts—a clear demonstration of pricing power.
The week brought another significant endorsement: Palantir Technologies named Nebius its preferred infrastructure partner for sovereign AI deployments. This distinction carries weight. Palantir serves governments and enterprises for whom data control is a security imperative, and Nebius compute and inference endpoints will now be available within Palantir's corporate perimeter. The market responded with a 7.7% single-day gain—evidence that strong strategic news still commands investor attention, at least in the short term.
Institutional capital has been moving in the same direction. The Saudi central bank more than doubled its Nebius stake in the second quarter to 167,819 shares worth approximately $46.3 million. Lone Pine Capital opened a new position and made Nebius its largest holding, while Soros Fund Management also initiated a position during the quarter. Central bank investment decisions are not impulse trades.
The operational results explain the enthusiasm. Second-quarter revenue reached $582.3 million, up 454% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA swung from a $21 million loss to a $236 million profit. The annualized revenue run rate climbed to $3 billion—a 598% increase from a year earlier—and management reaffirmed full-year guidance of $3 billion to $3.4 billion while raising its target for contracted power capacity to 5 gigawatts by year-end.
Financing the buildout, however, presents a different challenge. At industry conferences, management outlined the cost of 5 gigawatts of contracted capacity by 2030 at approximately $250 billion in financing. Of this total, only about 20% is currently secured—a significant shortfall that helps explain recent weakness in the share price. This tension crystallized about a month ago when Nebius priced $5 billion in convertible bonds, upsized from an initially announced $4.5 billion and structured in tranches maturing in 2030 and 2034. Since then, the stock has declined 13.7%, a reminder that markets reward growth but penalize dilution and debt issuance, regardless of strategic rationale. Competition is also intensifying: according to Reuters, rival Nscale recently signed a multi-year deal with Figure, even as the window for market-share gains remains open.
The stock closed Friday at EUR 193.88, down 1.3% on the day and 14% over the past month. Nevertheless, it remains up 164% year to date and 155% over twelve months. The 52-week high of EUR 261.00 sits 26% above current levels; the 52-week low of EUR 60.50 is 220% below. The 200-day moving average of EUR 138.29 lies well beneath the market price, indicating the longer-term uptrend has weathered the recent pullback.
Despite these fluctuations, the operational momentum outweighs financing concerns over the near term. Demand extending into 2028, strengthening auction pricing, and a strategic partnership with Palantir point to structural rather than cyclical growth. The $250 billion question remains the genuine stress test—and if Nebius secures that financing, today's skepticism may prove misplaced.