Nebius spent $8,130.3 million on property, equipment and intangible assets in the first six months of 2026, according to the cash-flow table in its second-quarter results release (release). On its August 12 call, the company reaffirmed full-year “capital expenditures of $20 billion to $25 billion” (call transcript).
By our arithmetic, that leaves $11.9 billion to $16.9 billion to spend in the second half for Nebius to land inside its own range. Nebius reports third-quarter results on Thursday, November 12 (our preview).
Business Pill · Run-Rate Revenue Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on run-rate revenue. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Nebius’s results.
The key insight: By our arithmetic, Nebius had spent $8,130.3 million, 33% to 41% of its reaffirmed $20 billion to $25 billion 2026 capex guide, by the end of June, leaving $11.9 billion to $16.9 billion for the second half.
Nebius’s shareholder letter says annualized run-rate revenue (ARR) “reached $3.0 billion” at the end of June, up from $1.9 billion at the end of March. Nebius calculates ARR by taking AI cloudrevenue from the last month of the quarter and multiplying it by 12 (letter).
On the call, Nebius said: “We continue to expect annualized run rate revenue of $7 billion to $9 billion, group revenue of between $3 billion and $3.4 billion, group adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 40%, and capital expenditures of $20 billion to $25 billion.” By our arithmetic, reaching the year-end ARR range means growing ARR 2.3 to 3 times from the June level in six months.
Nebius’s cumulative 2026 purchases of property, equipment and intangible assets reached $2.5 billion by the end of March and $8.1 billion by the end of June, against a reaffirmed full-year capex guide of $20 billion to $25 billion. The first-quarter figure and the second-half range are our arithmetic from the company’s cash-flow table; the dashed lines are not a forecast.
The Capacity Targets
The letter says: “We now anticipate ending 2026 with 5 GW of contracted power”, up from the more than 4 GW it indicated the previous quarter, and that Nebius plans “to deploy more than 1 GW per year, starting in 2027.”
Contracted power is not the same as power in use. Asked on the call whether Nebius still expected to end the year with 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt, Andrey Korolenko said: “we still expect to meet this guidance from 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt of connected power this year.” Korolenko added that commissioning, building clusters and onboarding customers “takes a few months” before revenue starts.
The Microsoft and Meta Contracts
Nebius’s Form 20-F for 2025 says Microsoft “has committed to pay the Group fees under the Microsoft Agreement estimated to be up to $ 17,392.9” million over a five-year term at its Vineland, New Jersey, data center, “including aggregate upfront payments of approximately $ 6,958.1” million, with the remaining consideration invoiced monthly through October 2031 (Form 20-F). The second-quarter letter says Nebius has “delivered all capacity tranches to Microsoft under the contract”.
The same filing describes two Meta agreements. Under a November 2025 agreement, “The total contracted consideration under the initial order is approximately $ 2,880.7” million. A March 2026 agreement and its initial orders “have a total contract value of up to approximately $27 billion”, of which orders for dedicated capacity “have a total contract value of $12 billion” and a further order covering unsold capacity “has a potential total contract value of up to $15 billion”. The letter says capacity for the second Meta agreement is “on track to come online in early 2027”.
The Funding
Nebius said on the call that it ended June with $8 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and the letter says the company expects over $9 billion in customer prepayments in 2026. In the second quarter, Nebius sold “12.7 million Class A shares at a weighted average price of $224 per share, generating gross proceeds of approximately $2.8 billion” through its at-the-market program. In July it raised “$775 million priced at SOFR + 2.50%” in its first secured debt financing (letter).
Since the quarter ended, a Form 6-K filed on October 22 says Nebius signed a bridge facility with Citibank on October 17 providing “a senior secured term loan facility in an aggregate principal amount of $3.5 billion”, maturing on October 16, 2027 (Form 6-K; our piece).
Our Numbers
By our arithmetic, the $8,130.3 million spent in the first half is 33% to 41% of the $20 billion to $25 billion full-year guide. Second-quarter spending, $5,657.4 million, was 2.3 times the first quarter’s $2,472.9 million, which we derive by subtracting the second quarter from the six-month total.
Dividing the year-end ARR range by the connected-power target gives $7.0 million to $11.3 million of ARR per megawatt, by our arithmetic. That is below the more than $20 million of revenue per megawatt that the letter says Nebius’s second-quarter deals averaged (our comparison), which is consistent with the lag between connected power and revenue that Korolenko described. Bernstein put Nebius at $11.1 million of revenue per megawatt (our piece).
Across the three agreements in the 20-F, the stated values add up to about $47.3 billion, by our arithmetic, of which up to $15 billion depends on Meta buying capacity Nebius has not sold to others. Microsoft’s upfront payments are 40% of its contract’s estimated value.
The Structural Read
As we read Nebius’s own documents, the company has given three yardsticks for the year: ARR of $7 billion to $9 billion, capex of $20 billion to $25 billion and 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt of connected power.
As we read the call, connected power is not revenue-generating power: Korolenko said commissioning, clusters and onboarding take a few months before revenue starts.
As we read the 20-F, up to $15 billion of the Metavalue depends on Meta buying capacity Nebius has not sold to others, so the headline total is not all fixed.
Andrey Korolenko, Nebius, on the Q2 2026 call
“connected power represents the data centers, and there are a few steps coming from the data centers to the revenues”
Three Implications
FOR INVESTORS Nebius reaffirmed group revenue guidance of $3 billion to $3.4 billion and a group adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 40% for 2026 on its August 12 call.
FOR LENDERS Nebius’s first secured debt financing, in July, raised $775 million priced at SOFR plus 2.50%, and its October Citibank bridge facility is $3.5 billion, maturing on October 16, 2027.
FOR CUSTOMERS Nebius’s letter says capacity for its second Meta agreement is on track to come online in early 2027, and that it has delivered all capacity tranches to Microsoft under that contract.
The analysis says: “The job of any operator, investor, or builder is to know which layer they are operating inside and which layer the binding constraint is rotating toward next.”
As we read it, Nebius’s targets sit in the compute layer, where the constraint it describes is connecting power and turning it into revenue. The analysis does not discuss Nebius.
What Is Not Established
Nebius has not published third-quarter figures. This piece compares its own targets with its own reported numbers and makes no forecast of the results. The second-half capex range and the per-megawatt figures are our arithmetic, not company guidance. Owned and leased capacity differ across neoclouds (our piece).
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Nebius spent $8.1 billion by June against a reaffirmed $20 billion to $25 billion capex guide, needs ARR to grow from $3.0 billion to $7 billion to $9 billion, and targets 800 megawatts to 1 gigawatt of connected power by year-end. Those are the yardsticks it set for itself before Thursday’s report.
A note on sourcing. Every figure comes from Nebius’s second-quarter 2026 letter and results release, its Q2 earnings call, its Form 20-F for 2025 and its October 22 Form 6-K. Differences, ratios and per-megawatt figures are our arithmetic, not company guidance. This piece makes no forecast and is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
