Two tech giants are backing the same dark horse in AI cloud infrastructure. Meta signed a $27 billion deal. Nvidia invested $2 billion. And Nebius Group (NBIS) – up nearly 400% over the past year – is leaving rival CoreWeave (up 109%) in the dust.
With a $25.2 billion market cap, Nebius is still smaller than CoreWeave’s $40.7 billion. But the gap is closing fast.
In mid-March, Nebius landed a five-year AI infrastructure agreement with Meta worth up to $27 billion – $12 billion for dedicated capacity plus a $15 billion option for additional purchases.
Around the same time, Nvidia announced a $2 billion strategic stake, helping Nebius deploy over 5 gigawatts of Nvidia systems through 2030. Notably, Nvidia already owned more than 12% of CoreWeave as of late 2025. Betting on both horses says everything about how hot this race is.
CoreWeave is still the larger player: $40.7 billion market cap, 43 data centers, 850 megawatts of live power. Nebius had just 170 MW at the end of 2025 but plans to hit 800 MW to 1 GW by end of 2026.
But growth tells a different story.
Revenue in Q4: Nebius surged 547% year-over-year to $228 million. CoreWeave grew 110% to $1.57 billion.
Neither is profitable yet. Both are spending heavily on GPUs and data centers.
| Nebius (Q4) | CoreWeave (Q4) | |
| Net loss | $173M | $284M |
| Quarterly capex | $2B+ | $8.2B |
CoreWeave expects 2026 revenue of $12-13 billion, backed by over $46 billion in contracts with OpenAI and Meta. Nebius holds major deals with Meta ($27B) and Microsoft (up to $19.4B).
AI compute rental prices are up 40% since October – demand remains strong. Nebius recently raised $4 billion in convertible notes and is building a 300 MW data center in Finland, targeting 3 GW of contracted business by 2026.
But high capex and fierce competition mean volatility is guaranteed.
Nebius offers faster growth, elite customers, and Nvidia’s blessing. CoreWeave still leads in scale and execution. For investors, Nebius is a high-upside bet: if it converts its backlog into profits, the sky’s the limit. If not, the burn rate will hurt. Can Nebius become the next CoreWeave? It has a chance to run even faster – but first, it must survive the red ink.
