$NEBIUS(NBIS)$ is down 61% from its high 🔴
Yet, Nebius just raised its prices again.
New deals pay $25M+ per MW a year, double the price at the start of 2026.
Here is my $NBIS Investment Thesis:🧵
1/ What does $NBIS do?
Nebius is a full-stack AI cloud:
- Data centers in the US, Europe, Israel and India
- GPU clusters for AI labs and enterprises
- Its own cloud software on top
It builds the whole stack itself, which keeps its costs down.
Nebius data center in Finland in winter
2/ Big names
Databricks, Datadog and Snowflake signed multi-year deals for the first time.
Palantir picked $NBIS as a preferred AI cloud for sovereign AI.
Microsoft and Meta are already customers.
Nebius Q3 2026 letter: Databricks, Datadog, Palantir and Snowflake
3/ $12B of new contracts
Customers committed $12B to $NBIS since July 1, including multi-billion 5-year deals.
Backlog is $38.7B, and most of the $12B was signed after the quarter, so it isn't in there yet.
Nebius slide: $12B of contract value since the start of Q3 and ACV per MW above $25M
4/ Prices are going UP
Revenue per MW a year:
- Start of 2026: $12M
- Q2 deals: $20M-$25M
- Q3 deals: $25M+
Per GPU-hour, prices rose 20%+ in 3 months.
Chart: Nebius contract pricing per MW per year
5/ Customers prepay the build
Prepayments on Q3 deals covered more than 100% of the capex. In Q2, it was 50-60%.
Payback on comparable 1-3 year deals fell to 19 months, from 22.
Nebius slide: prepayments above 100% of capex and payback of 1 year 7 months
6/ $9.4B of prepayments
Deferred revenue reached $9.4B, from $6B in June.
Nebius expects $10B of prepayments in 2026 and $17-20B in 2027.
Chart: Nebius deferred revenue by quarter
7/ Unbelievable growth
Quarterly AI cloud revenue:
$27M ➡️ $974M in 2 years! 🤯
Group revenue grew 571% Y/Y to $981M.
Nebius quarterly AI cloud revenue chart
8/ First with Vera Rubin
$NBIS has its first Vera Rubin systems live and got the best per-GPU MLPerf Inference result on DeepSeek R1 with them.
It's also the first AI cloud to adopt Nvidia Groq 3 LPX, and Cognition will run its first large Vera Rubin clusters on Nebius.
Nebius MLPerf Inference graphic with an Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 rack
9/ Margins are exploding
AI cloud ADJ EBITDA:
- Q3 2025: $25M
- Q3 2026: $518M, a 53% margin
Nebius also made its first GAAP operating profit as an AI cloud.
Nebius AI cloud adjusted EBITDA by quarter
10/ Beat on every line
- Revenue: $981M vs $907M expected
- ADJ EBITDA: $466M vs $349M
- EPS: -$0.13 vs -$0.63
Chart: Nebius Q3 2026 reported vs analyst estimates
11/ 4x in 2027
- 2027 revenue: $12-13B, 4x this year
- Pre-tax breakeven by Q4 2027
The guidance includes no revenue from new asset-light deals.
Nebius slide: financial highlights and 2027 guidance
12/ Power
Contracted power:
- August 2025: 1GW
- Today: 4GW+
- End of 2026 target: 5GW
Since Q2, Missouri grew to 1.1GW, and Nebius added Alberta, South Carolina and its first sites in India.
Chart: Nebius contracted power guidance
13/ Owning the build
From 2027, most new capacity comes from sites
$NBIS
owns:
- Today: ~10% owned
- Next 1GW: 50%+ owned
- The GW after that: 75%+ owned
Its own sites are on time or ahead of schedule.
Nebius slide: scaling capacity map, majority of new capacity from owned data centers
14/ Asset-light
A partner pays for the buildings and GPUs. Nebius brings the software and the customers.
The first deal brought in $325M in Q3, and Nebius gets paid again when that capacity comes online in 2027.
Chart: Nebius quarterly revenue with the asset-light payment
15/ Funding
- $28B raised in 2026
- $7.8B of it from customer prepayments
- $3.5B Citi facility in October
Prepayments and contract-backed loans should cover 75-85% of 2027 capex.
Chart: money Nebius raised in 2026 by source
16/ Analyst estimates
Revenue:
- 2025: $530M
- 2026E: $3.2B
- 2027E: $12.3B
- 2028E: $26.0B
49x in 3 years.
Chart: Nebius revenue actuals and analyst estimates
17/ Simplified valuation model
- 2030 capacity: 5GW
- ARR per MW: $18M
- 2030 revenue: $90B
- Net margin: 11%
- Net income: $9.9B
- Shares: 429M
- EPS: $23.09
P/E of 20-30: $462-$693, +298% to +498% upside
P/E of 30-40: $693-$923, +498% to +697% upside
From the Nov 13 close of $115.88.
Simplified Nebius valuation model for 2030
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