Dutch data center company Nebius has made significant strides in 2023, signing contracts worth over $20 billion with tech giants Microsoft and Meta. This surge in partnerships has propelled its share price by 248 percent, elevating the company’s market value to over $25 billion. With an increasing focus on providing GPU capacity and **data centers** in Europe and the United States, Nebius is establishing itself as a prominent player in the emerging “neocloud” sector.
In September, Nebius entered into a landmark agreement with Microsoft valued at $17 billion, followed by a $3 billion contract with Meta. These accomplishments are particularly noteworthy, considering Nebius only became operational as an independent entity in early 2024. According to co-founder Roman Chernin, the company is well-positioned for future growth despite some skepticism surrounding the sustainability of the AI market. “We are very bullish,” he states, expressing confidence in the potential for the AI infrastructure market to expand tenfold or even a hundredfold as organizations begin to adopt rapidly evolving AI models.
As a smaller player, Nebius is proactively preparing for fluctuating market conditions by developing high-margin services. “We should be ready [for when] the winter will come,” Chernin notes, emphasizing that Nebius could emerge as a consolidator during tougher times in the industry.
Nebius has positioned itself as Europe’s largest supplier in the **neocloud** segment, providing critical access to powerful graphics processing units (**GPUs**) essential for AI applications. This offering extends beyond just hardware; it encompasses the software tools needed to optimize GPU utilization and effectively run specialized AI applications. Consequently, Nebius finds itself competing against traditional data center operators and prominent American hyperscalers such as Amazon and Google.
To enhance its service offerings, Nebius has recently launched **Token Factory**, a platform designed for scalable AI inferencing that supports over sixty open-source models. While the U.S. remains the largest market based on revenue and installed capacity, Nebius also operates data centers across Europe, including the UK, Iceland, Finland, and France. Notably, the company inaugurated a GPU cluster in Paris equipped with Nvidia’s H200 Tensor Core GPUs, part of a broader investment exceeding $1 billion aimed at bolstering European AI infrastructure.
During contract negotiations with hyperscalers, Nebius emphasizes the importance of margins over sheer revenue. “We are thinking about it as a system, so we signed those [large] deals having in mind that we need to finance the rest,” Chernin explains. Following its agreement with Microsoft, Nebius raised $4.2 billion through a public stock offering and convertible bond sales, further solidifying its financial standing.
Among its early customer base are AI-centric companies, including France’s **Mistral**, the U.S.-based code platform **Cursor**, and Germany’s **Black Forest**, all of which are poised to play significant roles in the evolving tech landscape. Chernin anticipates that by 2026, growth will also come from established digital enterprises that have been early adopters of AI, such as **Shopify**, **Prosus**, and **ServiceNow**. These firms, traditionally reliant on American cloud services, are now recognizing the advantages offered by Nebius’ specialized AI solutions.
Looking beyond 2027, Nebius has ambitions to cater to major industrial players. “Where will Siemens and BMW go when they will need to adopt AI on a large scale?” Chernin questions, hinting at the company’s drive to stay relevant in this expanding market. By the end of 2026, Nebius aims to secure 2.5 gigawatts of contracted capacity for its facilities in both Europe and the U.S. According to data from real estate advisory firm **CBRE**, capacity sold to European neocloud providers surged by 211 percent, reaching 414 megawatts in the first nine months of 2025.
As Nebius continues to evolve amid an increasingly competitive landscape, its strategic focus on sustainable growth and high-margin services may position it favorably in a market that is both rapidly expanding and laden with uncertainties.
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