Nebius (NBIS) Stock Price Prediction 2026: Can NBIS Stock Double?

Before the Russia-Ukraine War and subsequent sanctions separated the companies into Russian and non-Russian assets, Nebius was a subsidiary of Yandex, which served as the Google of Russia. After reconfiguring to separate Nebius from Yandex, Nebius moved its operations to Amsterdam as a newly formed company and transitioned from its previous business model into Artificial intelligence (AI) Infrastructure, offering a complete stack of solutions.

Nebius has its own and leased data centers with state-of-the-art GPUs and has a large number of clients including Meta Platforms and Microsoft, which have signed multi-year contracts with Nebius, providing direct exposure to Hyperscaler Demand.

Nebius operates its primary first-party data center in Finland and provides additional capacity from colocated facilities in the USA (specifically Kansas City), France, and Iceland. Currently, Nebius is developing a build-to-suit leased facility in Vineland, New Jersey, in partnership with DataOne, and has secured a new colocation contract in the UK, thereby expanding the geographic area that Nebius covers with AI Workloads.

Nebius distinguishes itself from Cloud GPU Solutions Providers including CoreWeave through the combination of Managed Software Services with Data Centers as well as custom solutions for AI training, Educational Technology, and Robotics. This combination of capabilities has enabled Nebius to position itself as a total-stack provider of AI infrastructure, rather than simply as a GPU cycle processor.d Dell.

The buildup of Nebius' contract book confirming its fulfilment during Q3, along with its increase to an additional Contracted Power Plan of >2.5 gigawatts (from previously projected at a 1 gigawatt), underscores either scarcity of available capacity but more importantly gives a forward looking indication of the visibility or forecast of future production. 

Nebius had an incredible year in Q3 of 2025 with annualised revenue growth of 355% to $146 million compared to 2024. For the first nine months of this year, Nebius earned total revenue of approximately $302 million. 

The potential for December 2026 provides a massive growth opportunity for Nebius compared to their current revenues of $146 million and reflects the significant transition of the current $20 billion plus backlog of unfilled sales orders into revenue generation.

Nebius has projected a rate of $500 million to $550 million in revenue for the complete year; however, they are estimating Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) at $900 million to $1.1 billion, or significantly greater than their current base, showing their continued growth will begin to increase to meet overall contracted committed volumes.

Management anticipates that by December 2026, the ARR will be between $7 billion and $9 billion, or at least sevenfold of present net revenue; therefore a necessary rapid expansion is required, and it is stated by the company that this calculated ARR value indicates that the company is forecasting total revenue for 2027 through annualizing the final month's revenue. 

Analysts' projections show approximately $7.8 billion of Nebius revenue for 2027 representing approximately 305% CAGR growth from 2024; they are also projecting an adjusted EBITDA to be positive in 2026, to be greater than $5.0 billion in 2027. This illustrates a gliding transition from cash burn towards operational leverage.

The limitation of Nebius’ growth is essentially the capacity of the company's data centres. Nebius has already leased out all available data centre space, with plans to expand its capacity to between 800 megawatts and 1 gigawatt (920 megawatts being the biggest), up from 220 megawatts to date, by the end of 2026. This increase should enable Nebius to realise a substantial amount of its backlog of more than $20 billion in revenue. 

However, the short-term reality of building out AI infrastructure requires significant amounts of capital, forcing them to remain in a high spending mode to satisfy existing contracts, thus maintaining low short-term profit margins.

The outlook for Nebius stock prices in 2026 is likely to increase by up to 200% if: Capital continues to flow into AI-related infrastructure, they can realize a significant portion (over $20 billion) on their backlog, they can increase their total installed capacity from 220MW (220 megawatts) toward achieving their stated goal of 800MW to 1GW by year-end, and, finally, they are able to raise debt financing on terms that should be favorable to investors. 

If Nebius is able to convert their backlog on this scale, they will demonstrate that the projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 305% for their revenue growth is more than just temporary momentum but is, in fact, a meaningful change in how Nebius generates operational leverage.

On the other hand, should there be a reduced appetite for taking on risk or should higher costs of diluted shares and increased debt-driven costs deter investors, the valuation increase for 2026 could also reverse much of the increase for 2025.

While Nebius has generated $146 million in revenue for the quarter ended September 30 and incurred a net loss of $120 million in the same time frame, the company's projected loss for 2024 on an adjusted EBITDA basis is $266 million. A sustained losses is also expected through 2025, reflecting the high costs of its ongoing expansion phase.

Nebius's current price-to-sales ratio (P/S) is significantly out of range with traditional standards and can be considered quite high, as the company trades at approximately 60 to 64 times on the basis of sales based on various snapshots compared to a Nasdaq Composite average of approximately 5.5. There is very little margin for error based on execution. At a valuation based on enterprise value (EV) of $24.2 billion multiplied by approximately seven times next year sales using various forward looking estimates suggests a very different outlook than would be indicated using P/S metrics which show trailing data.

The company's buildout funding presents another area of pressure as at the end of Q2 Nebius had a total of $4.8 billion in cash offset by $4.6 billion in total debt. For instance, it would take approximately $10 billion to build a one gigawatt data center, plus an additional $20 billion to $30 billion to purchase the necessary chips to run such a facility. Therefore, the company will have to close the gap in financing for its multi-site expansion with financing that will need to be raised immediately upon completion of its first site.

Nebius will fund the next few years with at least three forms of financing (corporate debt, asset-based financing, equity), which will create higher interest costs and dilute its equity. If there is a decline in risk appetite for investors, it will increase the amount of debt being added; therefore, create greater interest expenses and share dilution. 

Investors are already nervous about AI-driven expansion funded through debt, as evidenced by the significant decrease in Nebius stock price despite the company's filled capacity and rapid growth in revenue.

The investment argument here boils down to how durable the demand for AI will be in the future, combined with the cost of financing, together with the rate of execution on those products, which ultimately will determine if Nebius shares will be worth double in 2026; or retrace down if market sentiment changes. 

When deciding whether to invest in Nebius as it continues its hyper-growth path, investors should contrast it with the historically established AI infrastructure companies of today (Supermicro, Nvidia & Dell) and weigh the risk vs. reward with each of these company's stocks. 

Nebius is an ultra-speculative investment and has not yet been profitable and relies heavily on raising funds through large capital raises. In comparison, Supermicro has a more attractive entry point for investors focused on value stocks.  Currently trading for approx. 1x next year’s sales with close to 65% revenue growth, it has a "cleaner" valuation for investors reluctant to invest in Nebius when considering the current valuation of approx. 60x trailing P/S multiple.  

Supermicro has also capitalized on the emerging AI server market by developing and manufacturing AI optimized servers and being first to market with liquid cooled systems ahead of its larger competition, as well as securing a steady supply of Nvidia’s top-tier data center GPUs, allowing it to capture about 9% of the total dedicated AI server market in 2024 per ABI Research.  

Investors that prefer lower levels of volatility would be encouraged to look at Nvidia and Dell as alternative investment options for AI-related stocks.

Nvidia has a high-margin profit potential as a top supplier of GPUs, especially for large cluster operators such as Nebius, while at the same time, Dell has a massive $18.4 billion server backlog (record) and holds the largest 20% market share in the AI server space. Therefore, although Nebius will need to finance the multi-billion dollar buildout of its operations utilizing less favorable and possibly dilutive equity and debt structures, both companies will be able to monetize the AI trend with far less use of balance sheet leverage. 

Dell estimates that revenues in AI servers will increase by 150% this year, reaching $25 billion, and recorded a historic backlog of $18.4 billion on October 31 (Fiscal Q3 2026), with a five-month order pipeline of AI servers that Dell management stated was multiples of that backlog number, signalling continued strength in the market. 

Dell trades at approximately 0.8x revenues, which provides for the combination of growth and value, providing a more comfortable investment narrative for investors that may deem Nebius stock too expensive or too dependent on financing sources.

The big event for the NBIS will be in 2026; NBIS must turn the 2.5-gig promotions into annual results of approximately $7 billion to $9 billion during this time frame, and the biggest challenge is to not dilute the value excessively. 

For those who think that Nebius has enough leeway to scale up the "full stack" software business model, there is considerable upside to the stock; however, for most of us, we are still torn: The traded-off in a stock that is sold out as a pioneer in AI does compare to the solid balance sheets of companies like Supermicro, Nvidia, an