Nebius Surges 11% Pre-Market. $2 Billion Bet, What Exactly Does Nvidia See in It?

TradingKey - Before the market open on March 11, Eastern Time, AI cloud service provider Nebius ( NBIS) shares surged, with the gain once exceeding 11%.

Behind this rally is the market's positive reaction to its major strategic partnership with Nvidia ( NVDA )—Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in Nebius, and the two parties will join forces to build a next-generation hyperscale cloud service for the AI era.

According to the cooperation agreement, Nvidia and Nebius will engage in deep collaboration across multiple fields to jointly build a next-generation AI cloud service platform.

The two parties will collaborate closely starting from the AI factory design phase, including sharing design materials, design review processes and acceptance, early samples and system software support, platform startup support, and more, while regularly reviewing Nebius's business and technology to ensure its AI factories remain at the forefront.

Leveraging Nvidia's latest software technologies, optimized models, and development libraries, the two will build an industry-leading inference and agentic AI technology stack for developers and enterprises. This will help Nebius attract more AI-native companies and traditional corporate clients, enhancing its competitiveness in the AI cloud service market.

Nebius will be among the first to adopt Nvidia's next-generation computing architecture, including the Nvidia Rubin platform, Nvidia Vera CPUs, and Nvidia BlueField storage systems. By the end of 2030, Nebius plans to deploy over 5 gigawatts (GW) of computing capacity, equivalent to the power consumption of approximately 5 million households.

Furthermore, Nvidia will provide Nebius with the latest GPU health monitoring and software optimization recommendations to improve the overall operational stability of its computing clusters.

Nvidia Doubles Down on AI Cloud Services

Nvidia's $2 billion investment is not a whim but a crucial part of its AI computing strategy. In recent years, Nvidia has continuously consolidated its dominant position in the AI infrastructure space through direct investments and strategic partnerships.

In January 2026, Nvidia invested $2 billion in AI cloud service provider CoreWeave to support its construction of over 5 GW of AI factories by 2030. In March 2026, Nvidia successively invested in British cloud startup Nscale and Silicon Valley AI lab Thinking Machines. Now, Nvidia has turned its focus to Nebius, further expanding its influence in the AI cloud service market.

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, stated: "AI is reaching another critical turning point—agentic AI is driving massive demand for computing power and accelerating infrastructure development. Nebius is building an AI cloud for the age of agents, achieving full integration from chips to software, powered by Nvidia’s next-generation accelerated computing technology. Together, we will expand cloud services to meet the global surge in demand for intelligent computing."

Nebius was formerly the international business of Russian internet giant Yandex, pivoting to focus on AI cloud services after completing a restructuring in 2024.

Unlike traditional cloud providers, Nebius's architecture was designed around AI requirements from the ground up, rather than being repurposed from general-purpose cloud services. This native advantage has allowed Nebius to quickly emerge in the AI infrastructure field, securing a massive AI computing contract from Microsoft worth up to $19.4 billion last year alone, with its stock price soaring nearly 400% since its U.S. listing.

In 2025, Nebius delivered an impressive performance, with annual revenue of $529.8 million, a 479% year-over-year increase, successfully turning a profit with a net income of $101.7 million. Its rapid growth and AI-focused strategic positioning undoubtedly caught Nvidia's attention.

Arkady Volozh, CEO of Nebius, said: "Nebius was born for AI from the start—not repurposed from general cloud services, but truly designed around the actual needs of developers. Now, through our partnership with Nvidia, we are extending our technology stack across all segments, from gigawatt-scale AI factories to inference services and software, committed to building the first and leading AI cloud platform for all AI developers worldwide."