Nebius Puts Customer Prepayments Behind Its 2027 Buildout

By Rebecca Stone

Nebius expects $40 billion to $45 billion of capital expenditures in 2027, with prepayments and asset-backed financing tied to contracts with investment-grade customers set to fund 75% to 85% of that outlay.

The Amsterdam-based AI cloud company now expects about $27 billion of capital spending in 2026, above its earlier $20 billion to $25 billion range. The plan puts customer financing at the center of the AI infrastructure market because Nebius is funding data-center construction and networking against signed customer contracts.

Founder and CEO Arkady Volozh wrote on Thursday in Nebius's quarterly shareholder letter: “In recent weeks our industry has been asked questions about how the AI build-out will be financed.”

Nebius reported that the financing shift is already visible in its contracts. The company said third-quarter prepayments covered more than 100% of related capital spending, including data center construction and networking. Second-quarter deals covered 50% to 60%.

The 100% figure applies only to capital spending tied to the signed third-quarter contracts, not to Nebius's entire 2026 budget. The broader budget remains about $27 billion, and the company still expects to raise outside capital.

How are customers financing Nebius's buildout?

For 2027, Nebius expects prepayments and asset-backed financing tied to contracts with investment-grade customers to cover 75% to 85% of spending. The company expects committed customer prepayments to rise from $10 billion in 2026 to $17 billion to $20 billion in 2027.

Both sources depend on signed contracts. Nebius said the contracts behind next year's financing come from investment-grade customers, making customer credit quality part of the funding case.

In an X post dated November 12, 2026, Volozh described the spending plan this way:

“Our focus remains on building a healthy, profitable business for the long term. We will continue to invest across the business — in our capacity and infrastructure build-out, in our platform and products, and in the team that takes this to market.”

The approach does not end Nebius's reliance on capital markets. According to Nebius, the company:

• raised $5.75 billion in convertible notes in August;
• generated about $1.0 billion in net proceeds from at-the-market share sales in the third quarter;
• lined up a $3.5 billion senior secured facility with Citi in October; and
• ended September with $7.4 billion in cash and equivalents.

The pitch came two days after rival CoreWeave ruled out new unsecured debt at today's yields. The contrast makes Nebius's mix of customer cash, contract-backed financing, equity sales and debt central to the market's assessment of neocloud expansion.

What did the third-quarter results show?

CNBC reported that Nebius beat quarterly expectations. Revenue rose 571% year over year to $980.8 million, ahead of the $907.5 million LSEG consensus cited by CNBC.

Adjusted EBITDA reached $465.8 million. The net loss from continuing operations narrowed to $37.5 million from $119.6 million a year earlier.

About $325 million of the revenue was non-recurring, Nebius said. It came from the initial phase of an asset-light arrangement in which partners deploy Nebius's architecture and cloud platform on capacity they fund themselves.

The non-recurring component means the headline result includes revenue booked under a partner-funded deployment model. That distinction matters when comparing reported growth with repeatable revenue.

Volozh wrote: “Our customers committed to longer deals, at higher prices, with more up front.” Annual contract value per megawatt topped $25 million on third-quarter deals, up from more than $20 million in the second quarter. Prices per GPU-hour rose more than 20% on average.

Those figures point to stronger pricing per unit of deployed capacity, even as some third-party availability moves into 2027.

Customers committed more than $12 billion in contract value since the start of the third quarter, Nebius said. Databricks, Datadog and Snowflake signed multi-year agreements with the company for the first time.

Why did the 2026 outlook soften?

Nebius said the revision centers on the timing of third-party capacity. Some capacity it expected to switch on in 2026 slipped into the first half of 2027. The company now expects 2026 revenue at the low end of its $3.0 billion to $3.4 billion range.

Its target of $7 billion to $9 billion in annualized run-rate revenue by December moved to February. Nebius expects to top $7 billion in February. CNBC reported that the shares fell about 10% Thursday morning.

The quarterly revenue result exceeded expectations, but the lower end of full-year guidance and delayed capacity weighed on the market's response.

One delay involves a New Jersey colocation site where Nebius has contracted capacity to Microsoft. Nebius now expects to deliver more than half of the capacity contracted with Microsoft there by year-end. The remaining tranches are scheduled for the second quarter of 2027.

The schedule changed after DataOne began retiring some of the site's temporary generation ahead of a move to permanent power. Nebius said the permanent-power transition is shifting to Bloom Energy fuel cells.

Nebius said the sites it owns remain on time or ahead of schedule. Four are set to begin deploying capacity in 2027:

• one in Missouri;
• one in Alabama;
• one in Lappeenranta; and
• a second location in Mäntsälä.

Together, those sites are expected to add more than 3 gigawatts at full scale. They do not solve this year's third-party delay because Nebius does not expect their deployment to begin until 2027.

These owned projects and the delayed Microsoft deployment show why Nebius's 2027 outlook depends on both company-controlled sites and a partner-powered colocation facility coming online.

What changes in 2027?

Nebius guided to 2027 revenue of $12 billion to $13 billion, about four times its 2026 revenue. It also targeted pre-tax breakeven in the fourth quarter, measured after financing costs.

Committed customer prepayments are expected to climb from $10 billion this year to $17 billion to $20 billion next year. Those commitments, combined with asset-backed financing, underpin the plan to fund most of next year's capital program without relying on customer payments alone.

Starting next year, Nebius will stop guiding on run-rate revenue. It will instead provide forecasts for revenue, pre-tax earnings and capacity. The change removes the annualized run-rate metric that the company had used for its December and February milestones.

The breakeven target assumes compute is depreciated over five years. Nebius adopted that useful life this year for its servers and network gear, replacing the previous four-year assumption. Volozh's profit target therefore rests on the revised depreciation policy as well as customer financing and capacity timing.

For Nebius, the next test is whether delayed capacity and four new owned sites can support 2027 revenue and breakeven while committed financing covers most of a $40 billion-to-$45 billion capital plan.