Nebius Shares Slide as AI Cloud Firm Plans Up to $45 Billion in Spending
Nebius beat third-quarter revenue forecasts, but a softer 2026 outlook and plans for up to $45 billion in 2027 spending sent its shares lower.
Shares of Nebius Group, an Amsterdam-based provider of cloud computing capacity for artificial intelligence, fell about 10% on Thursday even though the company’s third-quarter revenue beat Wall Street forecasts. The drop came after Nebius said 2026 sales would come in at the low end of its forecast range and that it would spend far more than analysts expected on data centers and chips over the next year, CNBC reported.
The company said it plans capital expenditures of $40 billion to $45 billion in 2027 and raised its 2026 spending estimate to about $27 billion. Investors have been asking whether heavy borrowing and spending across the AI infrastructure sector can last.
What happened
Nebius reported third-quarter revenue of $980.8 million, up 571% from a year earlier. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected about $907.5 million, according to both Reuters and CNBC. The net loss narrowed to $37.5 million, from $119.6 million a year earlier. The loss per share was 13 cents. Analyst estimates ranged from a loss of 69 cents (LSEG, cited by CNBC) to 72 cents (FactSet), though CNBC noted it was unclear whether the figures were directly comparable.
Adjusted EBITDA, a measure of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, came to $465.8 million, compared with a loss of $5.2 million a year earlier, according to the trade publication TheEnergyMag. That outlet also reported that about $325 million of the quarter’s revenue, roughly one-third, was non-recurring. It came from partnerships in which Nebius technology runs on infrastructure paid for by other companies.
The outlook concerned investors more than the quarter itself. In his letter to shareholders, Arkady Volozh, Nebius’s founder and chief executive, said full-year 2026 revenue would land at the low end of the company’s $3 billion to $3.4 billion range. FactSet’s consensus had been about $3.35 billion. Some third-party data center capacity planned for this year has slipped into the first half of 2027, though the customer contracts behind it remain in place, according to TheEnergyMag.
- 2027 revenue outlook: $12 billion to $13 billion, which Nebius called a conservative view of how fast it can build. FactSet had expected about $12.09 billion.
- 2026 capital spending: about $27 billion, up from prior guidance of $20 billion to $25 billion.
- 2027 capital spending: $40 billion to $45 billion, well above the FactSet estimate of $28.77 billion.
- Profitability target: break even on a pre-tax basis by the end of 2027.
Why it matters
Nebius is one of the so-called neoclouds, a group of younger companies that rent out large clusters of Nvidia graphics processors to AI developers. The group has become a gauge of investor confidence in the AI building boom, and its stocks sold off in recent weeks over doubts about whether that spending can continue. Reuters reported that Nebius lost more than a third of its market value in October.
The results also show how quickly spending is rising. Nebius raised $5.75 billion in debt during the quarter, CNBC reported. In October it announced a $3.5 billion senior secured credit facility from Citi, according to TheEnergyMag. Its capital spending in the third quarter alone was $7.3 billion, and it ended September with $7.4 billion in cash and equivalents.
The company says customers are paying for much of the expansion up front. According to Reuters, customers agreed to longer contracts at higher prices during the quarter, and their prepayments covered more than 100% of the capital spending tied to those deals. Nebius expects prepayments and asset-backed financing linked to existing investment-grade customers to fund 75% to 85% of its 2027 capital budget, TheEnergyMag reported.
Market reaction and wider pressures
Early reports of the stock move differed. Reuters said the shares were marginally higher in volatile premarket trading shortly after the release. CNBC later reported a decline of about 10%. Nebius had jumped more than 15% on Wednesday, part of a sector rally after rival CoreWeave raised its annual revenue forecast. CoreWeave, Applied Digital and IREN also fell before the opening bell on Thursday, CNBC said.
CNBC also pointed to other pressures. U.S. voters this month approved dozens of ballot measures restricting data center development. Nvidia, which held about $329 million of Nebius stock at the end of June according to a regulatory filing and has backed several neocloud projects, is dealing with leadership turmoil of its own.
What comes next
Nebius said that starting in 2027 it will give guidance on revenue, pre-tax earnings and capacity instead of annualized revenue run-rate, arguing that a single-month figure no longer reflects the business. The company now expects its run-rate to pass $7 billion in February 2027, later than its earlier year-end target, partly because its New Jersey site is switching to fuel cells from Bloom Energy for power. Investors will be watching whether the delayed capacity comes online on that schedule.
