NBIS is Nebius Group — a Dutch AI cloud infrastructure company. Yes, it's very much like CoreWeave, but with some key differences.
What is Nebius (NBIS)? #
- Formerly Yandex — Russia's Google equivalent. After 2022 sanctions, it divested Russian assets, relocated to Amsterdam, and pivoted to AI infrastructure
- Business: Rents GPU cloud compute for AI training and inference. Also offers managed software services — more "full stack" than CoreWeave
- Data centers: One owned in Finland, plus leased across US, UK, and Europe
- Key backers: Nvidia is both a major supplier and investor. Also has big contracts with Meta and Microsoft
Nebius vs CoreWeave #
| CoreWeave (CRWV) | Nebius (NBIS) | |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 revenue | $2.1B (up 112%) | $399M (up 684%) |
| Backlog | ~$100B | ~$50B |
| Debt-to-equity | 10.7 (heavy) | 2.1 (manageable) |
| Cash position | Burdened by debt | $3.7B cash |
| Growth rate | Fast | Much faster |
| Focus | GPU compute for training | Full-stack AI (training + inference + software) |
| Stock performance (12mo) | +70% | +510% |
| Valuation | ~5x sales | ~16x sales |
Is it risky? #
Yes — very high risk, high reward:
- Pre-profitability: Both companies are burning cash. Nebius had an adjusted net loss of $100M in Q1 2026
- Customer concentration: Massive reliance on Meta and Microsoft deals
- Competition: Going up against AWS, Google Cloud, Azure — plus other "neoclouds" like CoreWeave and Lambda
- Execution risk: Needs to keep building data centers fast enough to meet demand
- Yandex overhang: Some investors are wary given its Russian origins, though it's now fully separated
The bull case: Nebius is growing revenue at 684% YoY, has a cleaner balance sheet than CoreWeave, and analysts expect it to turn GAAP profitable by 2028. Its "full stack" approach (compute + software) could give it an edge in AI inference as the market shifts from training to deployment.
The bear case: It's already up 510% in a year. At 16x sales, there's a lot of growth priced in. Any miss on execution or slowdown in AI capex spending could hit the stock hard.
Bottom line: If you're comparing the two, Nebius is the "growthier" but pricier pick. CoreWeave is bigger and cheaper but loaded with debt. Both are speculative — this is a bet on AI infrastructure demand staying hot, not a conservative investment.
Are you thinking of buying, or just researching?