Nebius Spends $643 Million for 20-Person Startup to Win the Inference Race
13.06.2026 - 13:13:21 | boerse-global.de
The AI infrastructure arms race is entering a new phase, and Nebius is placing its biggest bet yet on efficiency rather than raw hardware. While the company's inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 and a £1.7 billion UK expansion grab headlines, its most telling move may be the $643 million acquisition of Eigen AI — a 20-person MIT-affiliated startup that costs roughly $32 million per employee. The message is clear: the battle is no longer about who owns the most Nvidia chips, but who can squeeze the most performance out of them.
Inference — the process of running trained AI models — is overtaking training as the dominant source of computing demand. According to ABI Research, inference capacity will grow 42% annually, devouring an estimated 46 gigawatts by 2035. Nebius is positioning its "Token Factory" platform at the center of this shift. Eigen AI's team specializes in optimizing open-source models after training, cutting inference costs dramatically for Nebius customers. That optimization layer, the company hopes, will prevent it from becoming a mere GPU landlord in a brutal price war.
The stock closed Friday at €200.60, up 4.49% on the day, and gained an additional 12.9% in after-hours trading after news broke that Nebius will join the Nasdaq-100 on June 22, 2026. The index-linked demand is mechanical: every passive fund and ETF tracking the Nasdaq-100 — representing more than 200 products and over $800 billion — must buy Nebius shares before the reconstitution date. Among the five new entrants, Nebius leads the pack with a 165.5% year-to-date gain, ahead of Astera Labs (120.9%), Teradyne (97.0%), Rocket Lab (64.5%), and CoreWeave (33.7%).
The UK expansion underpins much of the optimism. Nebius is investing ÂŁ1.7 billion in four British sites to build AI capacity using Nvidia's latest Blackwell Ultra technology, targeting a combined 65 megawatts by 2027. A separate ten-year agreement with Kao Data in Harlow adds another 22 megawatts. Alongside that, Bank of America analyst Tal Liani lifted his price target from $240 to $280, keeping a Buy rating after a fireside chat with chief revenue officer Roman Chernin.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nebius?
Fundamentals support the rally. First-quarter revenue surged 684% to $399 million, with the AI cloud segment up 841% to $390 million. Adjusted EBITDA swung from a loss of $53.7 million to a profit of $129.5 million. For the full year, management targets an annualized revenue run rate of $7 billion to $9 billion, backed by contracts with Meta (worth nearly $27 billion) and Microsoft ($17.4 billion). Nvidia itself invested $2 billion in March.
Yet the stock's 360% gain over the past twelve months has attracted profit-taking. Over the last quarter, insiders sold $131 million worth of shares with no reported purchases. CTO Danila Shtan unloaded 15,678 shares on June 4, while CRO Marc Boroditsky sold 10,776 shares at an average price of $276.20 on June 2. The shares currently sit about 17% below their 52-week high of €242.95, reached on June 2.
Nebius is also forging a new ecosystem. It recently launched the Physical AI Living Lab with Nvidia, a six-month program for UK and European robotics startups that provides access to Nvidia's Cosmos, Isaac, and OSMO platforms. The first cohort begins in September 2026. Meanwhile, the company's infrastructure network is expanding rapidly — nine new sites under construction in the US and Europe will bring the global total to 16 facilities, up from approximately 170 megawatts of active capacity at year-end.
Nebius at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
With a market capitalization of roughly €46 billion, the expectations baked into Nebius's share price leave little room for error. The Eigen AI acquisition must integrate smoothly, the inference platform must deliver on its margin promises, and enterprise demand for AI services must stay robust. The next quarterly report, due August 6, 2026, will offer the first real test of whether this ambitious strategy is translating into sustainable growth.
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Nebius Stock: New Analysis - 13 June
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