Nebius Group (NBIS) is no longer flying under-the-radar, behaving like one of the market’s newest AI gold rush stories. With Nvidia (NVDA) backing the company, Meta Platforms (META) signing a $27 billion contract, and revenue exploding, Nebius shares recently touched a new high of $233.73. NBIS stock has climbed 157% so far this year — and has surged 468% over the past 12 months.
Investors are beginning to see the company as a serious AI infrastructure contender. Here are three main reasons why Nebius stock is racing to new highs.
More Top Stocks Daily: Go behind Wall Street’s hottest headlines with Barchart’s Active Investor newsletter.
www.barchart.com Reason #1: Staggering Revenue Growth of 684%
The biggest catalyst behind Nebius’ recent rally is the extraordinary growth the company has been delivering. Nebius' first-quarter revenue grew a massive 684% year-over-year (YOY) to $399 million, while also increasing 75% sequentially. Even in the previous quarter, revenue growth remained exceptionally strong at 547% YOY. Meanwhile, its core AI business performed even better in Q1 2026, with revenue surging 841% YOY to $390 million, accounting for 98% of total group revenue.
By the end of March, annualized run-rate revenue reached $1.9 billion. Management stated that customer demand continues to exceed available supply, with several clients often competing for newly deployed capacity.
While the company’s growth rate is staggering, my concern is whether Nebius can sustain this triple-digit momentum in the long run. Moreover, the company is still not profitable. However, adjusted EBITDA improved sharply to $130 million compared to $15 million in the previous quarter and a loss of $54 million a year ago. Currently, analysts predict the company will report a profit of $0.36 per share in fiscal 2027.
Reason #2: Nebius Is Building an AI Empire at Full Speed
Even though profitability still remains a question mark, Nebius isn’t slowing down its infrastructure ambitions. In the quarter, it increased its contracted power capacity from more than 2 gigawatts to over 3.5 gigawatts and now aims to exceed 4 gigawatts by the end of 2026. The company also unveiled a new Pennsylvania site capable of supporting 1.2 gigawatts of power once fully operational. This will also be its second owned gigawatt-scale facility in the United States.
Nebius is now planning for capital expenditures between $20 billion and $25 billion in 2026. But the company made it very clear that its capex does not reflect speculative bets on future AI demand. In fact, much of its new capacity already has customer commitments for 2027 deployments.
Furthermore, Nebius is not just building more data centers. It is working to become a full-stack AI platform that includes training, inference, multi-tenancy, and agentic AI services. To support this goal, Nebius acquired Tavily, Eigen AI, and Clarifai earlier this year.
Reason #3: Nvidia, Meta, and Billions in Fresh Capital Strengthen the Bull Case
Another reason backing the rally in NBIS stock is the company’s rapidly improving financial and strategic position. Earlier this year, Nebius secured a $2 billion equity investment from Nvidia. Nebius has expanded its collaboration with the company by achieving Exemplar Cloud status for GB300 training workloads across multiple GPU generations. Additionally, it has secured a massive $27 billion contract from Meta Platforms, which management claims might open up billions of dollars in additional financing prospects for future cloud expansion. Partnerships with bigger, stronger players in the AI and tech space have piqued investors' interest.
On the balance sheet, Nebius had $9.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q1. Despite aggressively increasing infrastructure investments, the company expects annualized run-rate revenue between $7 billion and $9 billion in 2026.
Is Nebius Stock Still a Buy?
While the Q1 print showed why investors are increasingly bullish, Nebius stock remains a high-risk, high-reward AI infrastructure play. Maintaining triple-digit revenue growth in an industry that is highly competitive and capital intensive is not an easy task. Nebius' future will depend on how fast AI demand grows and how well the company can execute, since it has committed billions of dollars toward expansion.
If it succeeds in maintaining this pace, Nebius could emerge as one of the biggest long-term winners in the AI cloud market.
What Does Wall Street Say About This ‘No Longer Hidden’ AI Gem?
While the stock has cooled off and is down 8% from its 52-week high, Wall Street sees potential upside of up to 34% from current levels based on the high price estimate of $287. Overall, NBIS stock has a consensus "Moderate Buy” rating on the Street. Out of the 15 analysts covering the stock, nine have a “Strong Buy” recommendation while six rate it a “Hold.”
www.barchart.com On the date of publication, Sushree Mohanty did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
More news from Barchart
3 Reasons Why Nebius Stock Is Reaching New Highs Telecom Stocks Are Surging Ahead of the SpaceX IPO. This Chart Reminds Us All Rockets Come Crashing Back to Earth Eventually. A $10 Billion Reason to Buy AMD Stock Now Twenty One Capital Stock Jumped on a Major Bitcoin Pivot. Here’s What It Will Take for the Momentum to Last.