New York, January 20, 2026, 13:20 (EST) — Regular session
Shares of Nebius Group (NBIS) dropped 7.4% to $100.65 in early afternoon trading Tuesday, after fluctuating between $100.03 and $104.49. The Nasdaq-listed AI cloud company slipped $8.08 from its previous close, with roughly 10.9 million shares changing hands by midday.
The drop was steeper than the wider retreat seen in tech stocks. Nvidia, known for its GPUs that drive most AI model training, slid roughly 3.4%. The Nasdaq-100 tracking Invesco QQQ ETF dropped about 1.5%, but AMD went against the grain, climbing close to 1.5%.
Nebius drew attention after Israel’s Innovation Authority revealed it had rolled out access to the nation’s AI supercomputer. Nebius won the tender to build and provide access to the system for companies and researchers. The authority confirmed the infrastructure is now live, turning the spotlight onto the pace of adoption. 1
The Innovation Authority announced plans to provide computing power equal to 1,000 Nvidia B200 accelerators in the coming years. Access will be divided, with 70% reserved for high-tech firms and 30% for research groups. CEO Dror Bin described the initiative as “a key step” for Israel’s AI R&D infrastructure, emphasizing that discounted access aims to enable local training of large models. 2
Bin told The Jerusalem Post the global AI race is intense, positioning the supercomputer as a move to prevent domestic researchers and startups from depending entirely on foreign compute resources. 3
Nebius’s Israel project expands its core business of selling access to scarce AI compute resources. The Amsterdam-based firm has locked in multi-year AI infrastructure deals with Microsoft and Meta. In its latest quarter, Nebius reported $146.1 million in revenue, but its losses widened to over $100 million as capital expenditures surged to $955.5 million, according to Reuters. 4
However, the hefty outlay needed for additional power and GPUs has made the stock vulnerable to risks around funding and execution. In September, Nebius announced plans to raise $3 billion for expansion via a private convertible-notes deal and a public share offering, Reuters reported. 5
Israel’s Innovation Authority has set April 2, 2026 as the deadline for submissions to its voucher programme, which offers 30% discounts on supercomputer access. Vouchers become redeemable the month after committee approval. Traders will be tracking how quickly vouchers are being claimed and allocated to gauge if demand is translating into solid booked capacity. 6
