When investors consider the best stocks to buy for the next decade of artificial intelligence (AI) expansion, companies such as Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon seem to be the obvious choices. These tech leaders have been investing tens of billions of dollars into their AI initiatives and are backed by broad and diversified cash-generating businesses. They've demonstrated their ability to execute, and they have robust balance sheets.
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As such, many investors consider these stocks to be relatively safe, especially amid the current challenging macroeconomic conditions. However, there is a trade-off: Each of these companies already has a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion -- and Nvidia's is over $4 trillion. It would take some amazing business performances to move the needle enough for any of them to deliver further multibagger returns. This may not always be possible.
By contrast, a stock like Nebius Group (NBIS +4.99%) could offer many investors the right balance of risk and high growth potential. Shares of this relatively young AI company have the potential to grow dramatically over the next decade. Here's why.
AI-optimized computing capacity
Unlike major hyperscalers such as Amazon's AWS, Alphabet's Google Cloud, and Microsoft's Azure, which operate general-purpose cloud infrastructures designed to support a wide range of workloads, Nebius has been building data center capacity specifically to support AI training and inference workloads. This includes large-scale clusters of Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), high-density power, liquid cooling, and an AI-optimized software stack running directly on top of this hardware.
The company rents its computing capacity to AI start-ups, large enterprises, and even to tech giants such as Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
NASDAQ: NBIS
Key Data Points
According to the business IT specialist Uptime Institute, dedicated AI cloud infrastructure from neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius can deliver cost advantages of up to 66% compared to traditional hyperscalers. These savings are proving to be a key competitive edge, especially since data centers are experiencing explosive surges in power consumption as they transition from less-frequent AI training to high-frequency AI inferencing workloads.
Explosive growth
Nebius' performance in the third quarter demonstrates how the company is benefiting from explosive demand for AI-optimized computing capacity. Revenue rose 355% year over year to $146 million. Its core AI infrastructure business accounted for nearly 90% of total revenue, and grew 400%.
Nebius pre-sells GPU capacity as soon as it becomes available, and management has emphasized that its growth has been limited only by available capacity, not demand. The annualized revenue run rate for its core infrastructure business was $551 million at the end of the third quarter.
Profitability is also moving in the right direction, as the adjusted margin of the core infrastructure business reached 19% based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. That was an impressive performance considering that the company is investing aggressively in new data centers and GPU deployments.
Mega-deals
Nebius' multiyear, multibillion-dollar deals for computing capacity with Microsoft and Meta Platforms have dramatically increased the credibility, scale, and visibility of its data centers. The company has entered into a $17.4 billion, five-year deal with Microsoft, and that value can expand to $19.4 billion if Nebius can provide it with added service capacity.
It has also entered into a $3 billion deal with Meta Platforms and plans to deploy the required data center capacity by the end of 2025. The company noted that its limited available capacity constrained the deal's value.
While the Microsoft deal isn't expected to reach its full annual revenue run rate until 2027, the Meta deal will be mostly at its full annual run rate in 2026. For a company with a market capitalization of nearly $22.3 billion, contracts worth over $20.4 billion in total could have a dramatic impact on future share prices.
Expanding its data center footprint
As noted, limited capacity is the major constraint in Nebius' growth trajectory, but the company is working hard to reduce that bottleneck. It has plans to boost the amount of electrical power it has under contract to 2.5 gigawatts by the end of 2026. This will include connected power (power linked to fully-built data centers that are ready for use) of around 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt (1,000 megawatts). Management is focused on expanding its data center footprint in the U.S., as well as in international markets such as Finland, Israel, and the United Kingdom.
Nebius has increased its 2025 guidance on capital expenditures (capex) from about $2 billion to $5 billion. The company plans to allocate about 1% of its total capex to securing land and power, and nearly 18% to 20% to building data centers, including shells, cooling systems, and connected power.
The remaining 80% or so of capex will be allocated for real-time GPU deployment, which is only undertaken in cases of contracted or visible demand. Hence, a significant chunk of Nebius' capital will not be blocked if the AI cycle cools down. However, the company will also have sufficient available capacity to ramp up if demand for AI-capable data center infrastructure continues to surge.
The software stack
Nebius has also strengthened its AI-optimized software stack by introducing the third version of its AI cloud platform, called Aether. This provides enterprises with security, compliance, identity, and administrative tools.
It has also launched an inference platform called Nebius Token Factory to deploy open-source models at scale with guaranteed performance and transparent pricing. With the increasing frequency of AI inference workloads, Nebius Token Factory can help improve customer stickiness.
A robust runway
Nebius is exposed to the natural execution risks associated with heavy capital expenditures. The company has already announced plans to use corporate debt, asset-backed financing, and secondary equity sales to support its aggressive growth strategy. This will increase the company's overall debt, dilute current shareholders' equity, or both.
Despite the risks, Nebius' growth runway is too impressive to ignore. The company is guiding for an annual run rate of $900 million to $1.1 billion by the end of 2025 and $7 billion to $9 billion by the end of 2026. That explosive forecast rise in revenue highlights the company's potential as it rapidly expands its data center capacity. Given that its offerings have the validation of major deals with tech sector giants, Nebius looks like a smart way to ride the next AI wave, especially for investors who can handle some short-term volatility.
