Why Nebius Rocketed 230% in the First Half of 2026

Shares of European AI neocloud Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ: NBIS) rallied 229.9% in the first half of 2026, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

It was a stellar first half of the year for most hardware and semiconductor stocks involved with artificial intelligence build-out. However, Nebius outperformed all of the other AI "neoclouds" due to its strong execution, large contract wins, and new AI-related acquisitions.

Oh, and the investment by Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) in the company didn't hurt either.

Nebius lands big contracts, impressing Wall Street

Nebius has transformed into an AI neocloud over the past few years. Given that we are in the relatively early stages of the AI era, these stocks tend to react to large contract wins, as such deals help "de-risk" their current infrastructure build-out.

Nebius landed a few such deals during the first half. In January, the company was selected by the Israel Innovation Authority to build out the country's national supercomputer. Israel is perhaps the most technologically advanced place in the world outside of Silicon Valley and China. Hence, Nebius's winning the contract through a competitive bidding process is a strong endorsement.

Nebius also won a monster $27 billion, multi-year contract from Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) in March. Meta was already a Nebius customer, although on a much smaller scale. However, the five-year compute deal beginning in 2027 is significantly larger, and the news helped catapult Nebius' shares higher.

Nebius also received accolades on the investment side, as Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) agreed to invest $2 billion into the company. As part of the deal, Nebius will gain early access to the latest Nvidia architectures, and Nvidia will help Nebius deploy five gigawatts of Nvidia-based capacity by 2030.

Nvidia had already invested the same amount on similar terms in Nebius rival CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) in January, so Nebius "evened the score" in a sense by landing this deal. Furthermore, Nvidia's backing seemed to increase the probability that Nvidia would help Nebius find customers and raise capital. The expanded Meta Platforms deal actually occurred just after the Nvidia announcement, so the Nvidia commitment to Nebius may have been a catalyst.

These big deals paved the way for Nebius's blowout earnings report in mid-May. In its first quarter, revenue surged 684% year over year, trouncing expectations. At the same time, the company's adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) flipped from a $54 million loss to a $130 million profit.

Not only did the quarter's results impress, but CEO Arkady Volozh also noted that demand for compute was still vastly outstripping supply, suggesting strong results ahead. That dovetails with research firm SemiAnalysis's April data, which showed older Nvidia H100 rental pricing had increased by some 40% in March compared with October.

A major fear for neocloud companies like Nebius is that older GPUs will depreciate and lose value as newer chips enter the market. So, the fact that older GPUs' rental prices were not only not decreasing but actually increasing is a strong sign that older GPUs hold their value. A longer useful life for each Nvidia chip thereby increases the value Nebius and other neoclouds will reap from their massive current investments, and therefore the value of their stocks.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nebius looks frothy, but not on 2027 estimates

After its first-half run, Nebius trades at a frothy-looking 16.4 times this year's average revenue estimate; however, that price-to-sales ratio compresses to just five times the average 2027 revenue estimate for the company, and just three times the most optimistic analysts' estimate.

That's actually a very reasonable valuation, although it implies a more-than-tripling of revenue next year, even in the average estimate. Therefore, investors need to hope Nebius's revenue trajectory continues on its hockey-stick like path, and that it can sell its compute profitably. Recent results and GPU rental pricing appear encouraging on that front; however, if the AI demand story changes in any material way, Nebius' current high valuation could cause the stock to experience a significant pullback.

Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.