Nebius $NBIS ( ▲ 9.23% ) shares dropped after the neocloud provider posted fourth quarter results that fell short of Wall Street expectations. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA both missed consensus estimates, putting early pressure on the stock before it recovered some ground.
Even with the miss, management leaned heavily into its long term AI infrastructure expansion story.
Q4 Numbers Come in Light
For the final quarter of the year, Nebius $NBIS reported revenue of $227.7 million, below the $247.5 million analysts were expecting. Adjusted EBITDA of $15 million also trailed forecasts of $22.55 million.
The weaker than expected performance raised questions about the pace of near term growth as competition intensifies across AI cloud infrastructure.
Capacity Buildout Moves Faster Than Planned
CEO Arkady Volozh said Nebius ended 2025 with about 170 megawatts of active power capacity, well ahead of its 100 megawatt target. The company also raised its guidance for contracted power capacity to more than 3 gigawatts by year end, up from a prior outlook of more than 2.5 gigawatts.
Management expects to finish the year with annualized run rate revenue between $7 billion and $9 billion, underscoring its ambition to scale rapidly.
Conservative Revenue Forecast Raises Eyebrows
CFO Dada Alonso guided for $3 billion to $3.4 billion in revenue for the current year, a figure below analyst expectations of nearly $4 billion. She described the outlook as a prudent approach, suggesting management prefers to underpromise as expansion continues.
Like other neocloud providers, Nebius $NBIS faces the challenge of funding aggressive growth without overleveraging its balance sheet. Executives said they expect to finance roughly 60% or more of 2026 capital expenditures through operating cash flow, with most spending directed toward deploying GPUs rather than physical infrastructure.
For now, investors are balancing short term execution concerns with the longer term AI capacity story.