Nebius' stock has skyrocketed since its return to the markets.
It’s struck new multibillion-dollar deals with Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
Analysts could be underestimating its growth potential.
Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) was once known as Yandex, which owned Russia's top search engine and its associated websites, apps, and cloud services. But the sanctions against Russia derailed its expansion plans, and its Nasdaq shares were suspended in early 2022.
Yandex subsequently divested its Russian assets, retained its non-Russian businesses, and rebranded itself as Nebius, an Amsterdam-based provider of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure services. The rebooted company's shares started trading again at $14.29 per share on Oct. 21, 2024.
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Today, Nebius' stock trades at about $100. That massive rally was driven by the explosive growth of the AI market, but could it soar even higher over the next 12 months? Let's review its business model, future catalysts, and valuations to decide.
Image source: Getty Images.
Nebius operates only one first-party data center in Finland, but it leases additional data centers through colocation deals in Missouri, France, and Iceland. It's currently building its second first-party data center in New Jersey, and it recently leased another data center in the U.K.
Nebius installs Nvidia's top-tier data center graphics processing units (GPUs) in those data centers to help its clients remotely process their machine learning and AI tasks. So, instead of building their own data centers and installing those pricey, power-hungry GPUs to support their latest AI applications, companies can simply outsource that processing to Nebius' cloud-based GPUs.
Nebius differentiates itself from bigger cloud-based AI infrastructure companies like CoreWeave by integrating managed software services like Kubernetes into its data centers. It also provides dedicated services for the data training, edtech, and autonomous robotics markets. By bundling all those tools together, it promotes itself as a full-stack AI infrastructure company that doesn't simply process GPU-intensive tasks like CoreWeave.
In 2024, Nebius' revenue surged 462% to $117.5 million -- but its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) came in at negative $266.4 million. In the first nine months of 2025, its revenue soared another 437% year over year to $302.1 million as its adjusted EBITDA improved from negative $162.4 million to negative $79.9 million.
It was also "sold out of all available capacity" by the end of the third quarter of 2025, and it expected to generate an annualized run rate of $7 billion to $9 billion in revenue by the end of 2026. But that doesn't mean it expects to generate up to $9 billion in revenue in 2026. It means that it expects its monthly revenue in December 2026 to reach that annualized run rate when multiplied by 12 -- and possibly serve as a baseline for its total annual revenue in 2027 and beyond.
Most of that growth will be driven by its massive deals with Microsoft and Meta Platforms. It signed a five-year $17.4 billion AI infrastructure deal with Microsoft this September and another five-year $3 billion deal with Meta this November. It also aims to boost its data capacity from 190 megawatts (MW) today to 1 gigawatt (GW) by 2026.
For now, analysts expect Nebius' revenue to rise 392% to $578.2 million in 2025, 191% to $1.68 billion in 2026, and 158% to $4.34 billion in 2027. They also expect its adjusted EBITDA to turn positive in 2026 and more than double to $852 million in 2027. However, those estimates seem conservative when compared to Nebius' annualized run-rate target and its recent deals with Microsoft and Meta. Therefore, I wouldn't be too surprised if Nebius crushes those estimates and drives analysts to raise their targets again.
With a market cap of $25.7 billion, Nebius trades at 15 times next year's sales. It isn't cheap, but it also isn't as overvalued as some of the market's high-flying meme stocks are.
If Nebius merely matches analysts' expectations and continues to trade at 15 times its forward sales, its market cap could increase more than 150% to $65.1 billion over the next 12 months. But if it exceeds those estimates and commands a higher valuation, it could soar even higher. So, while it's still a speculative stock, it might be worth nibbling on before other hyperscale cloud giants follow Microsoft's and Meta's lead and strike more multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure deals with the company.
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Leo Sun has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.