AMSTERDAM, May 6, 2026, 14:06 (CEST)
- Nebius is set to acquire Eigen AI in a deal valued at roughly $643 million, split between cash and stock, picking up technology meant to cut the cost of running AI models.
- Shares have climbed ahead of next week’s Q1 results, sharpening focus on cash flow, capex, and key customer deployments.
Nebius Group shares hovered close to record highs Wednesday, with the Amsterdam-based AI cloud firm announcing plans to acquire Eigen AI. Investors appear to be watching this deal as a sign of Nebius’s push from leasing out hard-to-find computing power into selling higher-margin software. The Nasdaq-listed shares last changed hands at $175.92, just shy of the all-time closing peak set Monday at $176.42.
Timing could be key here. Nebius will release first-quarter numbers on May 13 before U.S. markets kick off trading, with its earnings call following at 8 a.m. Eastern. Investors will be watching for updates on annual recurring revenue, cash conversion rates, and how quickly Nebius is expanding its data-center operations. Annual recurring revenue—or ARR—tracks repeat sales on a run-rate basis.
Nebius announced on May 1 plans to buy Eigen AI, a specialist in inference and model optimization, in a deal valued at roughly $643 million in cash plus Class A shares. Inference refers to the stage where an AI model, once trained, produces responses, images, or code for users.
Nebius plans to bring Eigen AI’s post-training and inference tools into its managed open-source AI model platform, Token Factory. With the deal, Nebius picks up an engineering and research foothold in the San Francisco Bay Area, too.
Roman Chernin, who co-founded Nebius and serves as chief business officer, described the current landscape as a “capacity-scarcity world.” AI builders, he said, are looking for both infrastructure scale and optimized inference. On the Eigen AI side, Chief Executive Ryan Hanrui Wang said the company will team up with Nebius to ease bottlenecks in customizing models and deploying them into production.
Here’s the bull thesis boiled down: every Nvidia-powered unit runs with tighter software control. Should Eigen AI allow Nebius to push throughput higher and slash inference costs, it gives the company a shot to prove to investors that the surge in GPUs and data centers can translate into stickier platform revenue—rather than just an expensive hardware sprint.
Nebius surged to another record Monday, finishing at $176.42—up more than 14% for the session and boasting a staggering 600% rally over the past year, according to MarketBeat analysis on Investing.com. The stock’s latest jump follows momentum from the Eigen AI tie-up and buzz ahead of its Q1 numbers.
Nebius is vying for space in an already packed AI infrastructure scene alongside CoreWeave, Lambda, and IREN, each betting that supplying access to Nvidia’s high-end chips and energy-hungry data centers will lock in long-term cloud deals. According to Investor’s Business Daily, Nebius and its rivals mainly lease out Nvidia-powered servers to AI model developers and app makers. CoreWeave’s Q1 numbers are on deck this week as well.
Nebius’s latest fundraising has thrown new weight behind its ambitions. Back in March, Reuters said the company wrapped up a $4.34 billion convertible debt deal, following a $2 billion sale of share warrants to Nvidia and a Meta agreement that could hit $27 billion. Looking ahead to 2026, Nebius is eyeing capital expenditures in the $16 billion to $20 billion range, according to Reuters. CapEx covers spending on big-ticket items — think chips, servers, facilities, and power infrastructure.
Tom Blackwell, chief communications officer for Nebius, told Reuters the firm is “well-funded” and pointed to the potential of customer contracts as a capital source if structured right. Nebius anticipates 60% of growth funding will come from customer prepayments—mostly from Microsoft and Meta—while the other 40% will be covered by equity and debt. Reuters
The concern here: capital spending could outpace what’s actually coming in. This week, a Seeking Alpha piece flagged operating cash flow as the real number to watch in the Q1 update—not just ARR—highlighting management’s plan to use contract-related cash to cover roughly 60% of 2026 CapEx. Over at Wolfe Research, Arsenije Matovic kicked off coverage at Peer Perform. He pointed to solid demand, citing deals with Microsoft and Meta, but said management still faces a test on execution and funding.
Nebius posted $529.8 million in revenue for 2025, Reuters company data show. Earlier Reuters reporting put the firm’s target for an annualized revenue run rate at $7 billion to $9 billion by late 2026. That gulf means turbulence: investors are betting on Nebius scaling up fast, but it all hinges on getting chips, power, customers, and capital lined up in sequence.
Nebius gets a clearer narrative for earnings with the Eigen AI deal—more data-center space, plus a push to lower costs and speed things up on the AI side. The tougher part comes next week: proving if cash flow is gaining ground.
