Nebius Combines Robotics Push With Investor Marathon as Q1 Sales Surge

Nebius exhibits at IEEE robotics conference and BofA investor event after Q1 revenue surged to $399M; capex raised to $25B, demanding $4-5B more financing.

Nebius is entering a defining week that blends hardware ambition with investor scrutiny. The AI infrastructure provider is exhibiting at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Vienna from June 1 to June 5, while its Chief Business Officer Roman Chernin takes the stage at the BofA Securities Global Technology Conference on June 3 for a fireside chat scheduled at 16:20 EDT. The dual focus — on embodied AI and capital markets — underscores how the company is trying to translate its breakneck growth into a broader narrative.

The Vienna appearance is part of a wider series called RoboTour, spanning April through July 2026, designed to connect researchers, founders and investors around physical AI and autonomous systems. Nebius wants startups in this space to see its cloud infrastructure as a natural home for training perception models, digital twins, and real-world robotics workloads. It is not just a marketing exercise; the company has set up as both exhibitor and speaker at the conference.

That push comes alongside a flurry of other events. On June 5, Nebius is the platinum sponsor at a U.S.-based AI gathering. Two days later, it co-hosts the Geektime Code in Tel Aviv with NVIDIA, and on June 9, it runs its own "Nebius Inflection: AI Expert Forum" in San Francisco. The message is clear: the company wants to own the conversation in both cloud-scale AI computing and the emerging robotics layer.

Q1 Numbers That Demanded Attention

The rationale for the confidence is rooted in first-quarter results that smashed expectations. Nebius posted revenue of $399 million, up from $51 million a year earlier and ahead of the $375 million consensus. Adjusted EBITDA flipped to $129.5 million from a loss of $53.7 million. The annualized run-rate revenue stood at $1.92 billion at the end of March, compared with $1.25 billion three months prior.

Management has set its sights on an annualized run-rate revenue of $7 billion to $9 billion by the end of 2026. That ambition is backed by a staggering capital expenditure plan: the company lifted its 2026 capex guidance to a range of $20 billion to $25 billion, up sharply from earlier projections. Nebius already spent $2.47 billion on property, plant and equipment in the first quarter alone, compared with $544 million a year earlier.

The spending is justified by demand that already extends into 2027. The company is on track to secure over four gigawatts of contracted capacity by year-end, which implies a potential annualized revenue of $36 billion — far above even the updated goals. In mid-May, Nebius secured up to 1.2 gigawatts of power and land for a new AI factory in Pennsylvania.

Capital Needs and Funding Questions

The capex guidance requires an additional $4 billion to $5 billion in financing, raising the prospect of a capital raise that could dampen the stock's near-term momentum. The company had $9.3 billion in cash as of March 31, but the scale of the buildout means more is needed.

Meanwhile, Nebius has been active on the M&A front. It announced the acquisition of Eigen AI, a company specializing in inference and model optimization, for a combination of cash and Class A shares valued at roughly $643 million. Eigen's founding team, which developed widely used optimization techniques, will establish an engineering and research presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. That deal complements the earlier purchase of Clarifai, which works at the system level. Together, they form an end-to-end infrastructure stack to run complex AI models in production.

Stock Near Highs With Insider Sales in the Mix

Nebius shares closed recently at $264.51, up $33.46 from the prior session, after touching an intraday high of $274.68 and a low of $238.72. Volume reached about 24 million shares. The stock had earlier been near its 52-week high around $233.73 at the start of June, before the latest leg higher. Year to date, the shares have surged over 176%, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly $58 billion.

Analysts are broadly constructive, rating the stock a "Moderate Buy." Price targets range from $144 at Morgan Stanley to $270 at Citizens JMP. Bank of America raised its target to $240 with a buy rating, citing consistent execution and strong demand and backlog growth.

Yet insider activity gives some pause. CEO Arkadiy Volozh sold 33,358 shares in April at an average price of $103.73, reducing his stake by 3.7%. Director Elena Bunina sold 10,894 shares in May at $206.87, cutting her stake by over 50%. In total, insiders have sold $123.5 million worth of stock over the past three months.

The Vienna conference and the BofA fireside chair do not themselves provide new revenue guidance or customer contracts. But they give Nebius a platform to make its case — to robotics developers, to institutional investors, to potential partners. Whether the company can turn physical AI into a measurable demand driver for its infrastructure will only become clear in the quarters ahead, when capacity utilization and customer growth must keep pace with the enormous investment bill.