Nebius Announces $3 Billion AI Infrastructure Agreement with Meta

Nebius, the Amsterdam-based neocloud provider, announced a $3 billion AI infrastructure agreement with Meta on Tuesday, marking its second major contract with a global tech giant in just three months.

Revealed alongside Nebius’s quarterly earnings, the deal arrives as AI workloads fuel a race for computing capacity among cloud infrastructure leaders.

Under the five-year contract, Nebius will deliver high-performance AI computing power dedicated to Meta.

CEO Arkady Volozh told shareholders that demand outstripped Nebius’s current limits, with the contract size capped only by available capacity.

The company now faces the challenge of ramping up AI resources to align with both partners’ aggressive growth ambitions.

Why Did Meta Choose Nebius for AI Infrastructure?

Meta’s decision to partner with Nebius stemmed from the industry’s need for specialized, scalable AI infrastructure to support new machine learning systems at massive scale.

Nebius, which focuses intensely on high-throughput GPU capacity and end-to-end AI solutions, offered an attractive value proposition. Its proven track record in delivering for high-profile clients made it a serious contender.

A key factor in Meta’s choice was Nebius’s rapid capacity deployment and the speed of construction for new AI infrastructure.

Despite competition from hyperscalers like Microsoft and Amazon, both currently battling their own constraints, Meta opted for the flexibility and specialization promised by Nebius’s neocloud architecture as AI adoption accelerates globally.

Did you know?
Nebius’s September deal with Microsoft valued between $17.4 billion and $19.4 billion was nearly six times larger than its new agreement with Meta.

How Will Nebius Handle Massive AI Demand?

Meeting Meta’s demand, Nebius will invest heavily in expanding its infrastructure footprint. The company has already committed to scaling up its supply of Nvidia GPUs, constructing data center facilities, and upgrading power delivery systems.

Volozh stated Nebius would deploy the needed capacity within three months, underscoring the urgency of the partnership.

Critical to delivery, Nebius plans to leverage at least three sources of financing: corporate debt, asset-backed funding, and new equity offerings.

This spend aims to overcome industry-wide hardware backlogs and rapidly get new clusters online.

The company’s capital expenditures for the September quarter jumped to nearly $1 billion, reflecting this significant acceleration.

What Drives Nebius’s Rapid Financial Expansion?

Nebius reported a 355% year-over-year revenue increase in the third quarter, reaching $146.1 million. Although this figure came in below Wall Street’s $155 million estimate due to an accounting adjustment, it signaled robust market momentum.

Alongside revenue, Nebius’s market cap ballooned to $27.6 billion, with annualized run-rate revenue targets of $7 to $9 billion by late 2026.

These financial results track the company’s leap from niche cloud provider to major sector disruptor. Strategic deals, first with Microsoft and now with Meta, have driven visibility and investment.

However, aggressive expansion and infrastructure spending left Nebius with a quarterly net loss of nearly $120 million, reflecting the costs and risks of its market-share offensive.

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Are There Risks in Nebius’s Growth Model?

Nebius’s aggressive pursuit of scale has created significant risks, including rising losses, volatile share prices, and heavy capital requirements.

In the most recent quarter, capital expenditures exceeded $950 million, dwarfing 2024’s comparative spend and feeding investor caution.

Analyst concerns about profitability, especially after the recent revenue miss, have cooled some of the bullish sentiment that followed earlier stock surges.

Retail investors on social platforms remained wary after competitor CoreWeave issued lowered 2025 guidance, illustrating industry supply chain and capacity threats.

Nebius’s rising capital needs will test investor confidence through new equity offerings and heavier debt loads, with long-term profitability still a question mark for many observers.

How Does This Deal Shape the Broader AI Cloud Market?

The Nebius-Meta deal confirms the growing importance of nimble, specialized cloud providers in an industry long dominated by a few hyperscalers.

As demand for AI infrastructure outpaces even giants like Microsoft and Amazon, new opportunities emerge for challengers to capture market share with differentiated offerings rapidly.

Nebius’s focus on GPUs and machine learning workloads has proven especially attractive for clients needing high-performance solutions quickly.

This partnership also highlights ongoing constraints in the global supply of AI hardware, driving both clients and providers toward creative financing and strategic contracts.

As competition intensifies, Nebius’s story illustrates both the opportunities and challenges facing the next generation of cloud infrastructure leaders.

Sustaining the pace of innovation will require Nebius to execute flawlessly on its financing and infrastructure buildout plans, while convincing global customers and investors alike that it can keep up with surging AI demand.

If successful, Nebius may set new standards for how the technology industry approaches scalable, AI-first infrastructure over the coming years.