Finance
Nebius leverages Microsoft, Meta contracts for AI expansion
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 8, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 8, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Nebius leverages Microsoft and Meta contracts to expand its AI infrastructure, boosting its market cap and client base.
By Toby Sterling and Lucy Raitano
AMSTERDAM/LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Netherlands-based data centre operator Nebius will leverage recent multi-billion dollar contracts with Microsoft and Meta to build its business with traditional firms and emerging AI companies that could be future tech titans, its co-founder said.
A $17 billion deal with Microsoft in September and another $3 billion tie-up with Meta have helped propel the company's Nasdaq-listed stock 248% higher this year, pushing its market capitalisation past $25 billion.
The firm is now widening its client base - especially given fears an AI bubble is already underway.
"We are very bullish," Roman Chernin told Reuters in an interview, adding that ebbs are natural during a technological revolution but the market for supplying companies with access to AI infrastructure could grow ten- or even a hundred-fold, as firms are only beginning to use AI models that are themselves undergoing rapid advances.
As a smaller player in the booming sector, the firm is preparing for harder times by developing high-margin services and long-term relationships.
"We should be ready (for when) the winter will come," Chernin said, adding Nebius would then act as a consolidator.
EUROPE'S BIGGEST NEOCLOUD FIRM
Legacy enterprises are just beginning to tap Nebius' services, spanning sectors like manufacturing, retail and banking - with pharmaceutical firms and financial institutions like hedge funds moving faster, Chernin said.
Nebius, which has a partnership with Nvidia, is Europe's biggest 'neocloud' firm, offering access to the powerful but expensive graphics processing units (GPUs) needed for AI.
It also offers the software needed to use them effectively and to run specialized AI applications, putting it in competition with both traditional data centre operators and U.S. "hyperscalers" like Amazon and Google.
Nebius' top market by revenue and installed capacity is the United States, but it also has data centres in Europe, including in Britain, Iceland, Finland and France. It plans to secure 2.5 gigawatts of contracted power for facilities across both regions by the end of 2026, reflecting customer demand.
Capacity sold to European "neocloud" providers rose 211% to 414 megawatts in the first nine months of 2025 from a year earlier, according to real estate services firm CBRE.
MARGIN NOT REVENUE
Chernin said Nebius prioritised margins, not revenue, when negotiating hyperscaler deals.
"We are thinking about it as a system, so we signed those (large) deals having in mind that we need to finance the rest," he said.
Following the Microsoft deal, Nebius raised $4.2 billion through a public share offering and sale of convertible notes.
Nebius' early client base included AI natives like French model-maker Mistral, U.S. coding specialist Cursor, and German visual AI firm Black Forest - companies poised to become a new generation of large firms, Chernin said.
The company's growth in 2026 will come from existing digital firms that are early AI adopters, such as customers Shopify, Prosus, and ServiceNow, that have always relied on U.S. cloud services but see advantages in Nebius's specialised AI offerings, validating the company's model, he added.
Beyond 2027, the company hopes to supply services to mainstream companies, which Chernin said would do more for European sovereignty than attracting investments in large data centres by U.S. firms.
"Where will Siemens and BMW go when they will need to adopt AI on a large scale?" he said.
"The North Star ambition of Nebius is to exist and be relevant for that market."
(Reporting by Toby Sterling and Lucy Raitano; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans, enabling them to perform tasks such as problem-solving and decision-making.
Market capitalization is the total market value of a company's outstanding shares of stock, calculated by multiplying the current share price by the total number of shares. It is used to assess a company's size.
High-margin services are services that generate a significant profit relative to their costs. Companies often focus on these services to enhance profitability and sustain growth.
A partnership in business is a formal arrangement where two or more parties agree to manage and operate a business together, sharing profits, losses, and responsibilities.
A neocloud firm is a modern data service provider that offers cloud computing solutions, often utilizing advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance data processing and storage.
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