This Nvidia-Backed Company Is Bringing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Into the Physical World. Its Stock Could Jump 3x

Nvidia has invested in many artificial intelligence (AI)-focused companies lately, and neocloud provider Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) is one of them.

In March this year, Nvidia announced that it will invest $2 billion in Nebius to help accelerate the build-out of data centers and AI factories. Nebius specializes in designing and building dedicated AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data centers. It also provides a software stack to help customers create, deploy, and scale AI applications, as well as run inference tasks.

Nebius' end-to-end AI infrastructure platform has been in high demand from hyperscalers, as evidenced by the company's massive backlog. Its focus on aggressively adding new data center capacity has translated into phenomenal growth. Nebius' revenue in the first quarter of 2026 jumped nearly 8x year over year to $399 million.

The company's data center business powered this stunning growth. However, there's another side of Nebius' business that is currently overlooked. This segment could be a major growth driver for this AI stock in the long run. Let's take a closer look at it.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

The data center business is doing heavy lifting for Nebius right now, but there is a hidden opportunity you may have missed

Nebius' AI cloud business generated $390 million in revenue in Q1, and it grew by a whopping 841% year over year. The remaining $9 million came from its other ventures -- Avride and TripleTen. Avride is involved in developing robotaxis and sidewalk delivery robots, while TripleTen is in the edtech business. We are going to dive deep into Avride's prospects in this article and examine why it could be a big winner for Nebius in the long run.

Avride, Nebius' autonomous vehicle and robotics start-up, is backed by Uber. This early stage company is targeting the robotaxi market, which is expected to generate a whopping $400 billion in revenue in 2035, according to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank's analysts estimate that the U.S. robotaxi market could reach $19 billion in revenue in 2030 and grow to $48 billion in 2035.

Uber and Nebius invested $375 million in Avride last year. However, Avride has been under federal investigation as its self-driving cars were involved in 16 accidents in the first three months of 2026 in Dallas and Austin. Now, it remains to be seen whether the robotaxi market eventually lives up to its long-term potential, as all the major players in this space have been involved in incidents.

Alphabet's Waymo, for instance, has been involved in 69 incidents between July 2025 and March 2026 in the two cities. The technology is still in its early phase and needs significant fine-tuning. However, Nebius' partnership with Uber as a commercial partner in Avride could open a significant growth opportunity in the long run.

Meanwhile, the other side of Avride's business -- delivery robots -- is gaining terrific traction. The company notes that its robot deliveries increased by 178% year over year in Q1 to 174,000 units. Avride has shipped more than half a million robots since it started deliveries in April last year.

Importantly, Avride is expanding into more cities and college campuses. The partnership with Uber is proving to be a catalyst for this business, as Uber Eats is using Avride's robots for making deliveries. Fortune Business Insights estimates that the size of the delivery robots market could grow from $686 million this year to $7.6 billion in 2034.

As Avride is already making a dent in this nascent space, don't be surprised if it benefits from the secular growth of the delivery robots market in the future.

The core business is booming

We have already seen that Nebius' AI cloud revenue shot up phenomenally last quarter. That trend will continue in 2026 and beyond, as the company has been aggressively expanding its contracted data center power capacity. Nebius plans to end the year with more than 4 gigawatts (GW) of contracted data center power capacity.

It ended 2025 with 170 megawatts (MW) of active data center capacity and expects to end 2026 with 800 MW to 1 GW of active capacity. The company's contracted capacity suggests that it can significantly scale up its operations in the future and capitalize on the huge demand for AI data centers. This is why analysts are anticipating a major spike in Nebius' revenue.

Data by YCharts

Throw in the long-term growth potential of the Avride segment, and Nebius could grow even faster than analysts are anticipating. That's why it would be a good idea to buy this AI specialist right now, even though it is trading at 79 times sales.

However, Nebius' stunning growth and prospects justify that valuation. For instance, even if the company's revenue reaches $21.3 billion at the end of 2028 (as seen in the above chart) and it trades at 9.5 times sales (in line with the U.S. tech sector), its market cap could increase to $202 billion. That's 3x Nebius' current stock price, which is why investors looking to add a growth stock to their portfolios can consider buying it right away.

Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Goldman Sachs Group, Nvidia, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.