Nebius Commands 29% Price Hike as Hedge Fund Stake and $25 Billion Capex Plan Validate AI Cloud Demand

Nebius raises on-demand compute prices 29% and preemptible 51% as AI demand surges. Revenue jumps 684% to $399M, capex hits $25B, and a $2.6B hedge fund stake sends shares up 12%.

Nebius is rewriting the rules of AI infrastructure economics. The cloud provider raised prices on its on-demand compute by 29% effective June 1, with preemptible capacity jumping 51% — a clear signal that demand for its services is running far ahead of supply. The move comes as a $2.6 billion vote of confidence from a high-profile hedge fund and a sharply higher capital expenditure plan underscore the scale of the opportunity.

The company’s first-quarter numbers provide the backdrop. Revenue surged 684% year-over-year to $399 million, with the AI cloud business alone climbing 841%. Operating cash flow flipped to positive $2.3 billion, powered largely by customer prepayments that lock in future capacity. That cash generation sits atop a balance sheet holding $9.3 billion in liquid assets as of March 31, bolstered by $4.34 billion in convertible notes and a $2 billion direct capital injection from NVIDIA.

Leopold Aschenbrenner, the former OpenAI researcher who now runs one of the most closely watched AI hedge funds, has thrown his weight behind the stock. His firm Situational Awareness disclosed a position of 12.4 million shares valued at roughly $2.6 billion. The stake did not appear in Nebius’s March 31 filings, suggesting the purchase was made in May — a sign that Aschenbrenner considers the current valuation an entry point. The disclosure sent shares up 12% in pre-market trading.

Nebius’s expansion plans are matching the pace of its order book. The company now targets annualized recurring revenue of $7 billion to $9 billion for 2026, with total revenue expected to land between $3 billion and $3.4 billion. To support that growth, capital expenditures have been raised to a range of $20 billion to $25 billion, up from the previous $16 billion to $20 billion. Contracted capacity is on track to exceed 4 gigawatts by year-end, compared to an earlier goal of 3 gigawatts; the company already holds more than 3.5 gigawatts under contract, over 75% of it in owned facilities.

Two anchor projects in the United States illustrate the ambition. In Pennsylvania, Nebius has secured land and power for a 1.2-gigawatt data center, with the first 250 to 300 megawatts expected to go live by the end of 2027. In Independence, Missouri, construction has begun on another 1.2-gigawatt campus — the company’s first large-scale U.S. project. Both are backed by long-term offtake agreements, including a five-year, $27 billion deal with Meta and a substantial capacity commitment from Microsoft. Investors will be watching Chief Business Officer Roman Chernin’s appearance at the BofA Securities Global Technology Conference on June 3 for any further announcements.

The analyst community is broadly positive but cautious on valuation. Among 15 analysts covering the stock, the median price target sits at $230.77 — just a fraction above the current price of $229.50, where the stock trades at 68 times earnings. DA Davidson recently downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral, keeping its $250 target unchanged. The combination of a 684% revenue spike, a triple-digit price hike, and a high-profile hedge fund entry creates a narrative that is hard to ignore, but the market is already pricing in a significant amount of future growth.