Shares of Nebius Group jumped 16% on Wednesday after Nvidia announced a substantial $2 billion investment in the artificial intelligence cloud company, signaling a deepening collaboration to meet the escalating global demand for AI computing power.
Nvidia Fuels AI Infrastructure Growth
Nvidia's $2 billion investment will deepen the partnership between the two companies, targeting AI infrastructure, fleet management, and inference capabilities. The companies plan to collaborate on AI infrastructure deployment, fleet management, inference capabilities, and the design and support of AI factories. As part of this expansive deal, Nebius will also gain early access to Nvidia's latest generation of accelerated computing platforms. This access is crucial as Nebius aims to deploy more than five gigawatts of AI capacity by the close of 2030.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang underscored the importance of this partnership, stating, "Nebius is building an AI cloud designed for the agentic era, fully integrated from silicon to software and powered by NVIDIA's next-generation accelerated compute." He added that together, they are scaling the cloud to address the surging worldwide demand for intelligence. Nvidia's own shares saw a marginal increase at market close on Wednesday.
Nebius's Pivotal Role in the AI Ecosystem
Nebius has become central to the AI infrastructure boom by building dedicated data centers stocked with Nvidia chips and renting capacity to customers. The company specializes in constructing dedicated AI data centers, outfitting them with Nvidia's advanced chip systems, and then renting out this high-demand computing capacity to various customers. Beyond raw computing power, Nebius's full-stack AI infrastructure platform also provides users with managed software services, contributing to its strong market demand.
AI computing demand far outpaces supply—Goldman Sachs estimates a 10-gigawatt shortfall over the next three years. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that data center demand will outstrip supply by an average of 10 gigawatts over the next three years. Nebius is actively working to bridge this critical gap. In 2025, the company notably exceeded its own targets by adding 170 megawatts of data center capacity, surpassing its 100 MW goal for the year.
Looking ahead, Nebius projects ending 2026 with an active data center capacity ranging from 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt. The company also aims to increase its contracted data center capacity—the amount of electricity secured from utility companies for future data centers—to 3 gigawatts by the end of 2026. This expansion matters because Nebius has over $20 billion in orders waiting to be fulfilled.
Nvidia's Strategic Investment Spree
Nvidia's bet on Nebius fits a pattern: the company just invested $2 billion each in Lumentum and Coherent, and previously backed Synopsys and CoreWeave. Just one week prior to the Nebius announcement, Nvidia revealed strategic partnerships and $2 billion investments in both Lumentum and Coherent. In December, the chipmaking titan acquired a $2 billion stake in chip design firm Synopsys, and in January, it announced another $2 billion investment in CoreWeave, another AI cloud provider.
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The collaboration and financial backing are set to help Nebius accelerate its capacity build-out, with Nvidia pledging to assist in bringing more than 5 gigawatts of data centers into operation by 2030, a substantial increase from Nebius's active capacity at the end of 2025.
