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Will Nebius' Strong Customer Pipeline Drive Future Growth?
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Key Takeaways
NBIS pipeline generation grew 3.5 times quarter over quarter to a record level amid strong demand.
Nebius raised 2026 capital spending to $20B-$25B to expand capacity with customer commitments secured.
NBIS reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance as utilization, pricing and added capacity support growth.
Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) is seeing strong momentum in customer demand, supported by a rapidly expanding sales pipeline and increasing adoption of its AI cloud platform. During the first quarter, the company reported that pipeline generation grew 3.5 times from the previous quarter, marking a record level. Management stated that the growing pipeline, together with strong customer demand, is driving continued investments in infrastructure, platform capabilities and capacity expansion. The company noted that several customers are typically competing for every GPU it brings online, while contract durations, average contract values and customer prepayments continue to increase.
Alongside growing demand, Nebius continues to expand its AI infrastructure and full-stack cloud platform. The company increased its contracted power capacity to more than 3.5 gigawatts and now targets at least 4 gigawatts by the end of 2026. It also announced a new Pennsylvania site capable of supporting 1.2 gigawatts of power. To strengthen its platform, Nebius acquired Tavily, Eigen AI and Clarifai, adding engineering talent and enhancing its inference optimization, agentic search and Token Factory capabilities.
The company highlighted its pipeline excludes strategic hyperscaler agreements such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (META - Free Report) and consists of qualified opportunities across its AI cloud and Token Factory offerings, serving AI-native companies, software vendors and enterprises. Nebius maintained strong win rates while shortening sales cycles, increasing average selling prices and securing customer wins across healthcare, life sciences, physical AI, automation and fintech.
For 2026, Nebius raised capital expenditure guidance to $20 billion-$25 billion from the previous $16 billion-$20 billion range. The increase reflects investments for 2027 capacity, with customer commitments already secured, including Meta. Management expects these investments to begin contributing to revenue during the first half of 2027.
Nebius reiterated its full-year 2026 guidance for annualized run-rate revenue of $7 billion-$9 billion, group revenue of $3 billion-$3.4 billion and a group adjusted EBITDA margin of around 40%. The company said utilization and pricing remain strong, while additional capacity will remain the key factor supporting growth throughout the year.
Taking a Look at NBIS’ Competitors
Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) capitalizes on AI business momentum and Copilot adoption alongside accelerating Azure cloud infrastructure expansion. Strong Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud demand has been propelling Productivity and Business Processes revenue growth. ARPU is increasing through E5 and M365 Copilot uptake across key segments. Strategic execution through expanding scale and enterprise customer growth is driving non-AI services. Azure growth for the fourth quarter is projected to be 39-40% at cc, suggesting demand saturation, with customer demand exceeding available capacity. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Microsoft expects total company revenues between $86.7 billion and $87.8 billion, suggesting growth of 13% to 15%, with accelerating commercial growth partially offset by the consumer business.
CoreWeave (CRWV - Free Report) is seeing strong demand for inference-ready compute across GPU generations, which management expects to support long-term margin and earnings growth. The company also expects its storage business to grow rapidly, while software, CPU and networking offerings are each projected to exceed $100 million in ARR by 2026. AI adoption is expanding its customer base and platform opportunities as clients scale deployments across training, inference and agentic AI workloads. CoreWeave has surpassed 3.5 GW of contracted power capacity, secured more than $20 billion in financing and grown its backlog to nearly $100 billion, supporting growth through 2026 and 2027.
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Will Nebius' Strong Customer Pipeline Drive Future Growth?
Key Takeaways
Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) is seeing strong momentum in customer demand, supported by a rapidly expanding sales pipeline and increasing adoption of its AI cloud platform. During the first quarter, the company reported that pipeline generation grew 3.5 times from the previous quarter, marking a record level. Management stated that the growing pipeline, together with strong customer demand, is driving continued investments in infrastructure, platform capabilities and capacity expansion. The company noted that several customers are typically competing for every GPU it brings online, while contract durations, average contract values and customer prepayments continue to increase.
Alongside growing demand, Nebius continues to expand its AI infrastructure and full-stack cloud platform. The company increased its contracted power capacity to more than 3.5 gigawatts and now targets at least 4 gigawatts by the end of 2026. It also announced a new Pennsylvania site capable of supporting 1.2 gigawatts of power. To strengthen its platform, Nebius acquired Tavily, Eigen AI and Clarifai, adding engineering talent and enhancing its inference optimization, agentic search and Token Factory capabilities.
The company highlighted its pipeline excludes strategic hyperscaler agreements such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (META - Free Report) and consists of qualified opportunities across its AI cloud and Token Factory offerings, serving AI-native companies, software vendors and enterprises. Nebius maintained strong win rates while shortening sales cycles, increasing average selling prices and securing customer wins across healthcare, life sciences, physical AI, automation and fintech.
For 2026, Nebius raised capital expenditure guidance to $20 billion-$25 billion from the previous $16 billion-$20 billion range. The increase reflects investments for 2027 capacity, with customer commitments already secured, including Meta. Management expects these investments to begin contributing to revenue during the first half of 2027.
Nebius reiterated its full-year 2026 guidance for annualized run-rate revenue of $7 billion-$9 billion, group revenue of $3 billion-$3.4 billion and a group adjusted EBITDA margin of around 40%. The company said utilization and pricing remain strong, while additional capacity will remain the key factor supporting growth throughout the year.
Taking a Look at NBIS’ Competitors
Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) capitalizes on AI business momentum and Copilot adoption alongside accelerating Azure cloud infrastructure expansion. Strong Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud demand has been propelling Productivity and Business Processes revenue growth. ARPU is increasing through E5 and M365 Copilot uptake across key segments. Strategic execution through expanding scale and enterprise customer growth is driving non-AI services. Azure growth for the fourth quarter is projected to be 39-40% at cc, suggesting demand saturation, with customer demand exceeding available capacity. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Microsoft expects total company revenues between $86.7 billion and $87.8 billion, suggesting growth of 13% to 15%, with accelerating commercial growth partially offset by the consumer business.
CoreWeave (CRWV - Free Report) is seeing strong demand for inference-ready compute across GPU generations, which management expects to support long-term margin and earnings growth. The company also expects its storage business to grow rapidly, while software, CPU and networking offerings are each projected to exceed $100 million in ARR by 2026. AI adoption is expanding its customer base and platform opportunities as clients scale deployments across training, inference and agentic AI workloads. CoreWeave has surpassed 3.5 GW of contracted power capacity, secured more than $20 billion in financing and grown its backlog to nearly $100 billion, supporting growth through 2026 and 2027.
NBIS Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
Shares of Nebius have gained 4.4% in the past month against the Internet – Software and Services industry’s decline of 0.3%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
On a price-to-book basis, NBIS’ shares are trading at 9.65X, above the Internet Software Services industry’s 4.21X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NBIS’ earnings for 2026 has been revised significantly upward over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NBIS currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.