Nebius CEO doubles down on capex spending

Spending $20 cardinal successful a azygous year is simply a bold statement, and spending $25 cardinal is simply a declaration of warfare (not quite!).

That's fundamentally what Nebius GroupCEO Arkady Volozh said connected the company's May 13 first-quarter 2026 net call.

He raised the capex guidance aggressively and explained wherefore he's not disquieted astir it.

"Everything we build, we sell, and we are inactive successful the precise aboriginal days," Volozh told investors.

For anyone watching the artificial quality infrastructure race, that's not a throwaway line. It's a signal.

Nebius is an AI-native hyperscaler

Nebius (NBIS) calls itself an "AI-native hyperscaler." It's a fancy mode of saying Nebius builds and runs the computing infrastructure that AI companiesneed to bid models and tally applications.

Think of it similar a landlord, but alternatively of apartments, Nebius rents retired graphics processing units (GPUs), unreality computing power, and a increasing suite of AI bundle tools.

The business is booming close present due to the fact that request for AI computing acold exceeds supply. Every clip Nebius brings caller hardware online, it's already spoken for.

Related: Goldman Sachs revisits Nebius banal terms people aft earnings

The institution said it typically sees 4 oregon much customers competing for each GPU it adds. The ongoing proviso compression is the motor down the numbers.

In Q1 2026, Nebius reported group gross of $399 million, an increase of 684% twelvemonth implicit year and 75% sequentially. The halfway AI businessrose 841% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth to $390 million.

Margins are besides expanding. The company's earnings earlier interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) borderline for the AI conception roseate to 45% successful Q1, up from 24% successful Q4 of 2025.

Nebius hikes capex guidance to $25 billion

So wherefore is Nebius spending much erstwhile things are already going well? Because the request isn't slowing down, and Nebius wants to summation a competitory moat.

The company's archetypal 2026 capex guidance was $16 cardinal to $20 billion. It conscionable raised that to $20 to $25 billion.

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CFO Dado Alonso was nonstop astir the reason: Nebius is gathering for 2027 demand, not conscionable this year.

Customers person already committed to capableness that won't travel online until aboriginal adjacent year.

"We are gathering for 2027 request wherever we person lawsuit commitments already successful place," Alonso said.

One of those customers is Meta.

• Nebius unveiled a $27 billion, five-year declaration with Meta.

• The woody breaks into 2 pieces, $12 cardinal committedness for dedicated computing capacity and an additional $15 billion enactment that Nebius tin either merchantability to Meta oregon to different unreality customers astatine perchance higher marketplace rates.

• If Nebius finds a purchaser consenting to wage more, it tin instrumentality it. If not, Meta is committed to absorbing the capacity.