Nebius (NBIS) Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference 2026 summary

AI compute demand and market dynamics

• AI compute demand is vastly outpacing supply, with orders now extending into 2028 and requests for tens of thousands of GPUs and vGPUs.

• The imbalance between physical infrastructure growth and AI demand is expected to persist for at least 24 months, driving up prices.

• Capacity auctions have been introduced, resulting in 15–20% higher prices and positive client feedback, with plans to expand auction mechanisms.

• Older generation chips remain in high demand for simpler workloads, while next-gen chips like Blackwell and Vera Rubin see robust interest.

• Additional capacity from players like Meta and xAI is beneficial but not transformative, adding incremental supply without radically altering the market.

Strategic partnerships and enterprise focus

• A new partnership with Palantir positions the company as a sovereign partner, enabling enterprises to control and improve open-weight AI models without sharing proprietary data.

• The collaboration leverages Palantir’s enterprise credibility and tooling with Nebius’ full-stack infrastructure, aiming to accelerate enterprise adoption and diversify the customer base.

• Enterprise customers are increasingly seeking controlled, end-to-end stacks for AI, with the partnership serving as a key channel to this segment.

• The company is prioritizing medium-term agreements (1–3 years) with AI natives, digital natives, and enterprises, viewing enterprise as the largest future opportunity.

• Four recent landmark wins, each averaging $1 billion, were secured based on technical performance and reliability, not price.

Business model evolution and growth strategy

• An asset-light model has been launched, partnering with infrastructure and energy companies to accelerate capacity expansion by leveraging their capital and physical resources.

• This partnership approach is expected to enable non-linear growth, with multiple large-scale projects targeting capacity coming online from 2027 onward.

• The company is flexible in sourcing power and land, including behind-the-meter and hydrogen cogeneration, to maximize capacity deployment.

• Value-added services, such as agentic search and inferencing, are being developed to enhance margins and provide a full-stack offering.

• The vision is to become a hyperscaler, leveraging customer insights to create new products and capture additional value.