Nebius Raises AI Compute Prices Thursday as Interest Costs Jump Nearly 25-Fold Under Its $27 Billion Meta Deal

A $27 Billion Backstop, Built in Stages

Nebius Group, the Netherlands-based AI cloud provider that spun out of Russia's Yandex after a 2024 restructuring and relisted on Nasdaq, has spent the last year stacking up some of the largest AI infrastructure contracts outside the hyperscalers themselves.

In September 2025, Nebius signed a deal with Microsoft worth between $17.4 billion and $19.4 billion. Two months later, in November 2025, it signed a $3 billion agreement with Meta Platforms. By March 16, 2026, that Meta relationship had expanded roughly ninefold, into a five-year agreement worth up to approximately $27 billion, according to Crypto Briefing.

The structure matters. Of that $27 billion, $12 billion is dedicated GPU capacity, built on Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform, with deployments expected to begin in early 2027 across Nebius data centers in Finland, the UK, and the US. The remaining $15 billion is a backstop: Meta only pays for that capacity if Nebius can't sell it to other customers first. For Nebius, it's a revenue floor. For Meta, it's compute access without building every rack itself. Shares jumped roughly 14-15% in pre-market and intraday trading when the expanded deal was announced.

Nvidia has separately made a $2 billion strategic investment in Nebius, reinforcing the company's position as a chip reseller and cloud operator rather than a chipmaker itself.

The Price Hike Landing Thursday

Starting Thursday, October 1, Nebius is raising on-demand prices across its H100, H200, B200, and B300 GPU families, according to 24/7 Wall St. The company's first capacity auction reportedly cleared 15% above the highest price it had ever charged, and management has said it could sell its entire 2027 capacity today on current terms.

Short-term GPU rentals now run $40 million to $50 million per megawatt, compared with $20 million to $25 million on Nebius's core long-term contracts. Customers who need compute right now will pay a premium for it.

The underlying growth numbers back that up. Second-quarter revenue grew 454% year-over-year to $582.3 million, adjusted EBITDA margin hit 41%, and remaining performance obligations, the contracted revenue Nebius has locked in but not yet delivered, stand at $37.49 billion. Nebius's AI business made up 98% of total revenue last quarter. The company is targeting $7 billion to $9 billion in annualized run-rate revenue and 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt of connected power capacity by the end of 2026.

The Numbers That Complicate the Story

Building that much data center capacity is expensive, and the financing costs are climbing fast. Nebius's interest expense rose to $119.1 million in the most recent period, up from $4.8 million a year earlier, a roughly 25-fold increase. Convertible debt now totals $8.5 billion, and the company sold 12.7 million shares through an at-the-market program, diluting existing shareholders to raise cash. Capital expenditure guidance of $20 billion to $25 billion suggests more fundraising is coming.

Analysts have responded by cutting their 2027 earnings-per-share estimate to negative $5.2292, down from negative $2.13 ninety days earlier, according to 24/7 Wall St. This represents a widening loss forecast, not a narrowing one, even as revenue climbs.

Customer concentration is a fair concern here too. Three customers account for 24%, 21%, and 14% of Nebius's revenue, roughly 59% combined. If any one of those relationships sours, or if Meta or Microsoft slow their capacity commitments, Nebius's growth story takes a direct hit. Retail sentiment on Reddit has turned sharply negative as well, with sentiment scores falling as low as 8 on the platforms tracking it.

Nebius shares closed most recently at $231.88, up 177.02% year-to-date but down 2.3% in the latest session, and trade at 46 times forward earnings. Seven analysts cover the stock with a consensus price target of $283.58, implying 22.3% upside, though price targets are forecasts and stocks regularly miss them.

What Happens Next

Management has said deals coming online late this year won't significantly move 2026 guidance, since new power capacity takes months to start generating revenue. Formal 2027 guidance is due later this year, and that number will be the real test: whether the October price increases and the $37.49 billion order backlog translate into profit, or whether interest payments on $8.5 billion in convertible debt eat the gains before they reach the bottom line.