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Nebius plans over 1 GW of new GPU capacity a year from 2027

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Nebius plans over 1 GW of new GPU capacity a year from 2027

Nebius, a GPU rental cloud provider, told investors on Wednesday's earnings call that it plans to bring online more than a gigawatt of new datacenter capacity every year starting in 2027. "Our future capacity pipeline effectively makes Nebius one of just a few companies in the world able to build more than a gigawatt of new capacity a year and we plan to do so in 2027," CEO Arkady Volozh said. Before that pace begins, 2026 itself is a heavy spending year: Nebius expects to burn between $20 billion and $25 billion on capital expenditures to bring 800 to 1,000 MW of datacenter capacity online.

The company is financing the buildout from several directions at once. CFO Dado Alonso said Nebius is on track to exceed $9 billion in customer prepayments, essentially deposits for future capacity, this year, but prepayments alone will not cover the spending. Like fellow rent-a-GPU providers CoreWeave and Lambda, Nebius is also borrowing against its GPUs and contracted cash flows: it landed its first asset-backed debt facility, worth $775 million, in July, and Alonso said the company will keep leaning on that kind of financing going forward. On top of debt, Nebius is exploring an asset-light model in which, as Volozh put it, "partners finance, build, and operate the facilities, whereas Nebius brings the full-stack platform and demand." That lets Nebius claim deployed capacity without fronting all the cash for it, but the arrangement depends on the company being able to rent capacity for less than it can resell it for.

Volozh laid out the revenue math behind the bet: for every megawatt deployed, Nebius expects to bring in $20 million to $25 million in revenue from medium-term leases, and $40 million to $50 million, roughly double, from short-term leases of up to six months. At the low end of that range, a full gigawatt would imply about $20 billion in revenue. Nebius Chief Product and Infrastructure Officer Andrey Korolenko cautioned that not all of the up to a gigawatt of connected power Nebius expects by the end of 2026 will be active and generating revenue right away, since commissioning a datacenter, building the network and clusters, deploying the platform and onboarding customers "takes a few months." He said the 800 MW to 1 GW guided range should be thought of as becoming active throughout the first half of 2027.

On the financial results themselves, Nebius forecasts full-year 2026 revenue of $3 billion to $3.4 billion, against just $582 million in the past quarter, meaning the company would need to bring in more than $2 billion over the next two quarters to hit that target. Investors reacted well: Nebius shares surged more than 30 percent on Wednesday following the earnings report. The company is not yet profitable on an operating basis, though: it posted a Q2 operating loss of $176 million, up from a $111 million operating loss in the same quarter a year earlier.

Key facts

  • Nebius plans to bring online more than a gigawatt of new datacenter capacity every year starting in 2027, CEO Arkady Volozh said on Wednesday's earnings call.
  • For 2026, Nebius expects to spend $20 billion to $25 billion in capex to add 800 to 1,000 MW of capacity.
  • Financing comes from customer prepayments (on track to exceed $9 billion this year), a $775 million asset-backed debt facility landed in July, and an emerging asset-light partner model.
  • Volozh's guidance implies $20 million to $25 million in revenue per megawatt for medium-term leases and $40 million to $50 million for short-term leases, or about $20 billion per gigawatt at the low end.
  • Nebius forecasts $3 billion to $3.4 billion in FY2026 revenue versus $582 million last quarter, but posted a Q2 operating loss of $176 million, up from $111 million a year earlier; shares still jumped more than 30 percent on the report.

Why it matters

Nebius is trying to scale its annual capacity additions to a size it says only a handful of companies worldwide can match, an explicit bid to compete on buildout pace with the largest GPU cloud operators rather than just on total size. Just as notable is how it plans to pay for that pace: a mix of customer prepayments, asset-backed debt and an asset-light partner model that lets Nebius report deployed capacity without fronting all the capital itself. That financing structure, not just the gigawatt figure, is the part worth tracking as other GPU cloud providers publish their own capacity numbers.

Who it affects

Directly: Nebius's GPU-leasing customers, who are the source of both the prepayments funding the buildout and the lease revenue it is banking on. Also directly: the outside partners taking on the debt and construction risk under the asset-light model, and lenders behind the $775 million asset-backed facility. Competitively: other rent-a-GPU providers such as CoreWeave and Lambda, which use similar debt-financed expansion and will be compared against Nebius's pace and margins. And Nebius's shareholders, whose response sent the stock up more than 30 percent after the earnings call.

How to use it

Nebius's own guidance gives a rough price signal for anyone evaluating GPU capacity deals with it: medium-term leases run $20 million to $25 million in revenue per megawatt deployed, while short-term leases of up to six months run $40 million to $50 million per megawatt, about double. Buyers should also note the timing gap Korolenko described: capacity guided at 800 MW to 1 GW by the end of 2026 is expected to become active through the first half of 2027, not immediately, since commissioning, networking, cluster build-out, platform deployment and customer onboarding all take months.

How solid is it

The figures come directly from Nebius executives, Volozh, CFO Dado Alonso and Korolenko, on an earnings call, so they are company guidance rather than independently audited numbers. The often-cited $20 billion-per-gigawatt figure is not something Nebius stated itself; it is calculated from the low end of the company's own per-megawatt revenue range. Korolenko's own caveat, that not all of the connected power expected by year's end will be generating revenue until 2027, already tempers the headline gigawatt claim.

Risks and caveats

The asset-light model depends on Nebius being able to rent capacity for less than it can resell it, a margin bet rather than a guarantee. The 2026 buildout alone requires $20 billion to $25 billion in capex against roughly $9 billion in expected prepayments, leaving a large gap to be covered by debt and partner financing. And despite the growth story, Nebius is not yet profitable on this measure: its Q2 operating loss widened to $176 million from $111 million a year earlier, even as revenue is projected to grow sharply in the coming quarters.

“Our future capacity pipeline effectively makes Nebius one of just a few companies in the world able to build more than a gigawatt of new capacity a year and we plan to do so in 2027.”

— Arkady Volozh, CEO of Nebius