Nebius Group is no longer the leftover Dutch shell of a sanctioned search company. It is a full-stack AI cloud that converts scarce graphics-processor capacity into prepaid multi-year contracts faster than the plants can open. Annualized run-rate revenue reached $3 billion at mid-year, before most of this year's capacity even came online. The investment debate is not whether demand exists. The debate is whether delivery, funding, and pricing hold together long enough for that backlog to become earnings rather than stranded iron.
What changed under the hood is the funding mix, not just the growth rate. Roughly seventy percent of second-quarter deals carried customer prepayments, and those advances are guided to bring in more than $9 billion this year. That cash already shows up in operating inflows, which is why multi-billion quarterly capital spending does not look like insolvency. The offset is equally visible. An at-the-market sale of Class A shares raised about $3 billion in the same quarter. Prepaid demand is real. So is the habit of topping it up with equity.
The Microsoft Vineland contract is now in the servicing phase, four landmark AI-native deals closed above $1 billion each, and NVIDIA sits on the register after a strategic check. Recognized revenue still has to climb into the guided full-year band without another large equity tap every time a new campus lights up. That is the question the next several quarters actually resolve.