Nebius Faces BofA Grilling as Robotics Tool, Nvidia Backing, and a $4.5 Billion Cash Hole Collide
03.06.2026 - 15:53:37 | boerse-global.de
Nebius steps onto the BofA Securities Global Technology Conference stage today with a story that is equal parts triumph and tension. The AI-infrastructure upstart has seen its stock more than quintuple over the past twelve months, boosted by a slate of megadeals with Meta and Microsoft, a freshly unveiled robotics platform powered by Nvidia, and a 5.6% stake from former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Yet behind the headline numbers lurk a yawning financing gap, analyst caution, and the constant risk of dilution as the company races to build out its cloud empire.
At €226.35, the stock edged 0.87% higher in European trading, modestly below the recent peak of €242.95. The monthly gain stands at 50.14%, and the year-to-date advance is a blistering 195.88%. A 590.09% surge over the past twelve months has already priced in much of the optimism, leaving investors hungry for concrete details on how Nebius will sustain the momentum.
Q1 Delivers on Growth, but Costs Are Crushing
The numbers from the first quarter are nothing short of staggering. Revenue hit $399 million, a 684% jump year over year. The AI Cloud segment, the company’s core muscle, grew even faster — up 841% to around $390 million. Adjusted EBITDA swung from a $53.7 million loss to a $129.5 million profit, while net income from continuing operations landed at $621 million, compared with a $104 million loss a year earlier.
That performance has been fuelled by two anchor contracts: a $27 billion deal with Meta and a $19.4 billion commitment from Microsoft. Delivery of capacity under those agreements is set to begin in the second half of this year. Management has set an ambitious target of reaching an annualized revenue run rate of $7 billion to $9 billion by the end of 2026, up from $1.92 billion at the end of March.
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But the cost of expansion is immense. Nebius poured $2.47 billion into property, equipment, and intangible assets in the first quarter alone. Operating expenses stood at $527 million, including $212 million in depreciation. For 2026, the company has pencilled in capital expenditures of $20 billion to $25 billion — leaving a funding gap of $4 billion to $5 billion that has yet to be closed.
A Robotics Play, Backed by Jensen Huang
On June 1, Nebius unveiled its Physical AI Workbench, a software layer that brings together simulation, synthetic data, and application deployment. The platform sits on the Nebius AI Cloud and integrates Nvidia Cosmos 3, Isaac Sim, and Isaac GR00T as modular building blocks. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally highlighted Nebius as a key partner, and the company has been named an early adopter of the Vera Rubin architecture.
The Workbench is still without a revenue stream: no customer contracts, no committed usage figures. Nebius is now showcasing the platform at the ICRA robotics conference in Vienna as part of its multi-city RoboTour. The goal is to lock in developers and startups working on physical AI and autonomous systems, but whether those workloads will translate into sustained cloud consumption remains an open question.
Aschenbrenner's Bet and Analysts on the Fence
Leopold Aschenbrenner’s 5.6% stake, revealed two weeks ago, has been widely viewed as a vote of confidence from the AI research community. The former OpenAI researcher is betting that Nebius’s specialised cloud infrastructure for GPU-as-a-Service and large-scale clusters will capture a growing slice of the AI pipeline.
Wall Street, however, remains split. BNP Paribas Exane initiated coverage with a Neutral rating and a $255 price target — just below the current share price around $263. Citigroup is more bullish at $287, while Citizens JMP sets a target of $270 and Compass Point $260 with a Buy rating. The wider consensus sits at a conservative $188, reflecting deep uncertainty over the company’s ability to execute without excessive dilution.
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From a French Factory Floor to a Finnish Data Centre
Part of the answer may lie in the company’s bricks-and-mortar expansion. President Emmanuel Macron highlighted Nebius’s project during the Choose France investment summit. The company is working with Azur Datacenter to convert a former Bridgestone factory in Béthune into a 240-megawatt AI data centre, with an initial 60 MW phase expected to go live in summer 2026 and create around 120 direct jobs.
Across the Baltic, a 310 MW facility in Lappeenranta, Finland, is also in the pipeline. The Finnish centre is scheduled to come online in June, providing a first real-world test of Nebius’s ability to deliver on its multi-billion-dollar infrastructure bets.
The BofA Litmus Test
All these threads converge on today’s investor session. Roman Chernin, co-founder and chief business officer, will face questions on data centre utilisation, demand trends, the pace of spending, and most critically, how Nebius intends to plug its $4-5 billion financing gap. Without convincing answers, the risk of equity dilution could overshadow the narrative of hypergrowth and high-profile partnerships. For a stock that has already run so far, the room for disappointment is small.
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