Nebius Stock: A 571% Revenue Leap Meets a $27 Billion Bill and a Pushed-Back Target

Nebius delivered the kind of top-line growth most companies can only dream about, and investors responded by knocking 9.6% off the share price. The disconnect says less about the quarter than about what comes next: the company now expects to spend far more to build out capacity, and it has pushed its flagship annualized-revenue milestone from December 2026 to February 2027.

The AI infrastructure specialist reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $980.8 million, up 571% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $465.8 million, with a GAAP operating profit of $50.4 million. Those are the numbers of a business scaling fast. The problem sits on the other side of the ledger, where capital intensity is climbing sharply.

Capex Guidance Jumps, Revenue Outlook Trims

On Thursday Nebius raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to roughly $27 billion, up from a prior range of $20 billion to $25 billion. For 2027 it floated provisional investments of $40 billion to $45 billion. Alongside that, management guided full-year revenue to the low end of its existing $3 billion to $3.4 billion range, citing delays in third-party data center capacity that push a chunk of expected revenue into the first half of 2027.

The annualized revenue target of more than $7 billion, previously penciled in for December 2026, now points to February 2027. For 2027 as a whole, Nebius still expects revenue of $12 billion to $13 billion. Whether that outlook holds depends on a single variable: when contracted power actually becomes usable capacity.

Power, Not Demand, Is the Constraint

Nebius has secured more than 4 gigawatts of power capacity under contract and aims for 5 gigawatts by the end of 2026. The gating factor is commissioning. At the Vineland site, DataOne brought temporary generation to a halt sooner than expected, and the Bloom Energy supply was already live at the time of the earnings report but still ramping.

For the Microsoft-linked build-out, slightly more than half of the capacity is slated for delivery by the end of 2026, with the remainder due in the second quarter of 2027. That staggered schedule gives investors a concrete yardstick: committed power must convert into usable capacity, and then into revenue.

The contract terms add teeth to the timeline. According to a contract summary, Microsoft can terminate affected services if deadlines are missed and no replacement capacity is available, and late-delivery penalties apply. Further slippage could therefore go beyond a simple timing shift of revenue.

What the Quarter's Revenue Actually Contains

Composition matters here too. Of the $973.8 million in AI cloud revenue booked in the third quarter of 2026, roughly $325 million was non-recurring. For the growth story to hold, recurring revenue needs to carry the operating performance going forward.

Two Analysts, Two Halved Targets

Baird cut its price target to $200 from $340 on Friday while keeping an "Outperform" rating, pointing to the data center delays. D.A. Davidson halved its target to $125 from $250 and maintained a neutral stance, citing both the capacity delays and the revised annualized recurring revenue forecast.

The Markers That Matter Now

The bull case rests on the affected capacity remaining intact. If the power ramp proceeds on schedule, deferred revenue could land next year, supporting the explanation that timing — not demand — is what's holding back the growth path. A confirmation of the February 2027 target would bolster confidence in the $12 billion to $13 billion outlook, provided the subsequent build-out steps stay on track as well.

The bear case leans on the same dependency. The switch between temporary generation and fuel cells has already moved the schedule once. A longer ramp would extend revenue deferrals and undermine the credibility of the February goal. The next hard checkpoints are the February 2027 annualized revenue figure and the remaining Vineland capacity due in the second quarter of 2027 — both direct tests of whether planned growth can be turned into working infrastructure and, ultimately, into sales.