There was a lot of talk in 2025 that artificial intelligence (AI) was headed to a bubble. After all, the bears reasoned, there's no way that companies will continue to accelerate their spending on AI technology. Right?
But now we have the answer, definitively. The AI run-up is just getting started. Amazon announced it would spend $200 billion on AI this year, Meta Platforms plans to spend up to $135 billion, Alphabet is on board to spend $185 billion, and Microsoft plans to spend $105 billion in its fiscal year that ends in June. With those four companies alone, we're looking at about $625 billion this year on AI data centers, chips, and necessary hardware.
The market's reaction to that spending is muted at best, at least for the big spenders. Some analysts are worried that these companies are investing too much in an emerging technology, and that's why their stock prices are slipping.
But there are also going to be some huge winners because of all this spending, and my prediction is that Nebius Group (NBIS 2.62%) will outperform the rest of the AI stocks in 2026.
NASDAQ: NBIS
Key Data Points
What does Nebius Group do?
Nebius Group is a Dutch company building data centers that are designed to power AI technology. The company operates a full-stack AI cloud platform in data centers that are powered by thousands of top-of-the-line Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). That's important because Nvidia's GPUs are designed to work together to perform high-performance tasks such as AI and machine learning. And because Nebius' cloud platform provides full-stack services, it allows companies to build, deploy, manage, and scale their AI platforms in a cloud environment.
Nebius reported that it sold out of its capacity in the third quarter, so it's rapidly expanding its reach. The company had 220 megawatts of power connected to operate data centers at the end of 2025, and believes it will have between 800 megawatts and 1 gigawatt by the end of this year. But even that expanded load isn't enough, as Nebius Group has plans for 2.5 GW of contracted power -- by the end of this year.
Nebius had $4.3 billion in funding secured via convertible notes and an equity offering. And it has major contracts in hand with Microsoft (valued between $17.4 billion and $19.4 billion) and Meta Platforms (valued at $3 billion) to provide AI computing capacity.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why Nebius instead of Nvidia?
It's a fair question -- if you're looking for the top AI stock for 2026 and Nebius' business model relies on Nvidia GPUs, why wouldn't Nvidia be the top stock?
Simply put, it's a matter of scale. Nvidia is the biggest company in the world with a market cap of more than $4 trillion. And while it had a solid year in 2025, the stock's 38% gain was muted compared to the 202% gain from Nebius.
Nebius Group has a market capitalization of only $21 billion and is just beginning its growth story. And when you consider the extreme demand that hyperscalers and AI developers have for AI computing capacity, I'm confident that Nebius is just getting started.
