AI cloud provider Nebius Group N.V. says it is seeing rising compute prices and customer prepayments, while investors scrutinize the debt used to expand data center capacity.
In an August shareholder letter, Nebius said it signed four AI cloud deals in the second quarter, with average total contract value above $1 billion each. The contracts had annual values of $20 million to $25 million per megawatt. Nebius said roughly 70% of all deals closed in the second quarter included customer advance payments covering 50% to 60% of associated capital spending. Nebius estimated a one-year, 10-month payback on the investment, compared with its historical range of two to three years.
Marc Boroditsky, Nebius’ chief revenue officer, told CNBC that an Oct. 20 auction indicated per-megawatt prices had continued to rise. He said prices were increasing faster than the company had expected. Boroditsky forecast that Nebius would sell out capacity it brings online in 2027 and said a similar demand pattern was possible in 2028.
Nebius said it began publicly displaying live spot rates Oct. 21, after its dynamic spot-pricing system took effect Oct. 8. Customers can bid for short reservation windows or pay for compute as they use it. The company says spot access can be interrupted, while offering customers pricing flexibility.
Nebius announced a roughly $775 million secured loan in July, backed by GPU infrastructure and customer cash flows. CoreWeave’s June 30 filing listed about $35.6 billion in future debt-principal payments; debt carried on its balance sheet was about $35.1 billion after discounts and issuance costs. Reuters reported that a secondary-market yield on CoreWeave’s dollar bond due in October 2031 briefly rose above 16% on Oct. 15. EconoTimes previously covered CoreWeave’s bond-yield spike. Boroditsky told CNBC that Nebius did not have the same debt burden as CoreWeave.
Nebius says it plans to bring more than 1 gigawatt of new capacity online annually starting in 2027. It expects capacity tied to many second-quarter contract wins to arrive in late 2026, with most revenue from those deals coming in 2027.
