NBIS
The numbers say “grow fast,” the balance sheet says “hold my coffee”
Nebius Group’s Q1 2026 earnings were basically a neon sign flashing AI demand is still wild. Revenue jumped 684% year over year to $399 million, which is the kind of growth that makes even hardened investors sit up straighter.
But this wasn’t just a victory lap. Nebius also raised its 2026 capex guidance to $20 billion-$25 billion, up from $16 billion-$20 billion. Translation: the company is doubling down on infrastructure, power, and all the expensive plumbing you need when everybody wants more AI compute yesterday.
The AI arms race is expensive, apparently
Management said the company has now contracted more than 3.5 gigawatts of power, up from more than 2 gigawatts three months ago, and is targeting at least 4 gigawatts this year. That’s a lot of juice. Enough to make your home office look like a candle.
A few other headlines from the call:
- Nebius said its AI business posted a 45% adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter.
- It expects that margin to settle closer to 40% for the full year as it keeps investing.
- It announced a new Pennsylvania site that should support 1.2 gigawatts of power once fully live.
Big contracts, bigger ambitions
The company also leaned hard into the “we’re not just renting GPUs, we’re building a full-stack AI cloud” storyline. It highlighted a $27 billion Meta contract and a $2 billion equity investment from Nvidia, both of which strengthen Nebius’s financing and credibility.
And because no AI infrastructure company is allowed to sit still for five minutes, Nebius also pointed to acquisitions like Tavili, Aegon, and Clarify as part of its push to improve inference and system-level optimization.
Why investors should care
This is the classic high-growth trade-off: huge top-line momentum, but also huge spending needs. If Nebius keeps landing giant customers and scaling capacity, the stock could keep its jetpack on. If not, all that capex starts looking less like a growth engine and more like a very expensive science project.
Big picture: Nebius is trying to become one of the core picks-and-shovels players in AI. The demand is there. The question is whether it can build fast enough without tripping over its own spending bill.