Nebius Cranks Up US Construction as $50 Billion Backlog and Fuel Cell Deal Fuel Growth

Nebius launches major US AI campus in Missouri, secures $50B in contracts from Meta and Microsoft, and projects rapid revenue growth amid rising competition.

Nebius Group has broken ground on a sprawling AI campus in Missouri, marking the company’s biggest step into the U.S. market. The site, covering roughly 160 hectares, will employ 1,200 construction workers during the build-out and eventually require 130 permanent staff. Local education programs and strict sustainability mandates are baked into the project, which is designed to operate at gigawatt scale and serve as a blueprint for future American locations.

That Missouri campus is just one piece of a broader expansion. Nebius has raised its capacity target to 4 gigawatts by the end of 2026, anchored by a dedicated AI data center in Pennsylvania that carries up to 1.2 gigawatts of secured power and land — complementing existing infrastructure in Finland.

The physical build-out follows a torrent of contract wins that have transformed Nebius from a speculative growth story into a proven AI infrastructure supplier. The company’s secured order backlog stands at nearly $50 billion. Meta Platforms has booked capacity worth as much as $27 billion over five years, while Microsoft has committed to a deal valued at a minimum of $17.4 billion and potentially reaching $20 billion. Deliveries to Meta begin in the third quarter of 2026, with Microsoft following in the fourth quarter.

Those contracts are already showing up in the financials. Annualized core revenue from the AI cloud business jumped 54% quarter over quarter to $1.92 billion. Adjusted EBITDA swung from a loss of $53.7 million a year earlier to a profit of $129.5 million. Management is guiding for full-year revenue of $3 billion to $3.4 billion. By the end of 2026, the adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to hit 40%.

Such rapid scaling comes at a cost. The company’s long-term capital expenditure model calls for cumulative spending of up to $76.3 billion by 2028. To keep those figures on track, Nebius has locked in a framework agreement with Bloom Energy for fuel cell capacity, with potential service fees reaching $2.6 billion. The fuel cells will be deployed behind the meter, feeding power directly into the data centers and bypassing the public grid — a critical move given the immense energy demands of AI training workloads.

Yet the competitive landscape is tightening. A new alliance between Google and Blackstone has turbocharged the resources available to hyperscale cloud players, putting pressure on margins across the AI infrastructure sector. Analysts caution that the sheer capital firepower of that partnership could threaten the growth trajectories of smaller, independent providers like Nebius.

Against that backdrop, insider selling has caught the market’s attention. General Counsel Tal Boaz sold 5,100 shares in late May at prices between $199 and $200 under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Chief Revenue Officer Marc Boroditsky trimmed his stake shortly before. The stock recently traded at $214.77, up about 139% year to date. Citigroup maintains the most bullish analyst stance with a price target of $287, while other firms have grown more cautious, citing capital intensity and valuation risks tied to hyperscaler competition.

Nebius is not solely an AI cloud play. It also houses the autonomous driving platform Avride and the edtech service TripleTen, segments that add layers of complexity to its valuation. But the market’s focus remains squarely on the construction cranes rising in Missouri and Pennsylvania — and whether Nebius can execute on its billion-dollar bets without delays or cost overruns eating into margins.