Nebius Rolls Out AI Cloud ‘Aether’ and Points to Middle East as Stock Settles After Nasdaq-100 Rally

Nebius is wasting no time capitalising on its Nasdaq-100 membership. Less than a week after the index inclusion, the AI infrastructure firm has unleashed a major platform upgrade and announced a new regional vice president for the Middle East and Africa. Shares initially jumped more than 4 percent on the news before easing back, as investors weigh the company’s lofty valuation against the scale of its expansion plans.

The software layer is the centrepiece of the strategy shift. AI Cloud 3.6, codenamed “Aether”, introduces a natural-language assistant called Nebius Echo that lets developers orchestrate cloud environments without deep infrastructure expertise. Backed by open-source models, Echo aims to strip away complexity for early-stage AI teams. The technical improvements are equally striking: metadata-heavy workloads see a hundredfold leap in IOPS, throughput on 4K file operations triples, and validated file-system clusters now stretch to 100 petabytes.

Enterprise security also gets a boost with a new Key Management Service that hands encryption keys to customers — a clear nod to compliance-heavy clients. Alongside the platform release, Nebius launched the Builder Program, offering cloud credits to fledgling AI startups. The message is unmistakable: the company wants to lock in developers early, before they gravitate toward hyperscalers like AWS and Google.

The geographical expansion is equally deliberate. Raja Agrawal, a two-decade veteran of AI and enterprise cloud, joins as Vice President for the MEA region. He steps into a market where sovereign cloud solutions are projected to hit $80 billion by the end of 2026. Nebius clearly sees an opening in regions where data sovereignty is paramount — a niche that the big US providers sometimes struggle to fill.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nebius?

All this unfolds against a backdrop of breakneck growth. Nebius entered the Nasdaq-100 on 22 June, just weeks after reporting first-quarter revenue that surged 684 percent year on year. AI cloud revenue alone catapulted 841 percent to $389.7 million. For the full year, management expects sales between $3.0 billion and $3.4 billion. A five-year contract with Meta, valued at up to $27 billion, and a target of more than 4 gigawatts of datacentre capacity by end-2026 underpin the bullish narrative.

The stock initially responded with a 4.67 percent pop to €239.70, but later slipped 1.5 percent to €225.55 — a modest giveback after the post-Nasdaq-100 surge that saw the share price touch a 52-week high of €261. Even at the lower level, the stock has still gained roughly 195 percent year to date and nearly 440 percent over 12 months. The relative strength index sits at 56.6, neutral territory, while the price remains more than double the 200-day moving average of €112.28.

Despite the momentum, the risks are substantial. Nebius trades around 75 times annual revenue — a multiple that leaves no room for execution stumbles. Competition is intensifying: AWS and Google are rolling out their own AI development platforms, and regulatory pushback in US states over power-hungry datacentres could inflate costs. The company’s Vineland facility relies on Bloom Energy fuel cells, an expensive bet on localised power. Annualised volatility above 100 percent also means a broad tech sell-off could erase recent gains in a hurry.

The next catalyst is the quarterly earnings report. Nebius has talked up a $50 billion backlog in secured orders, but converting that into recognised revenue is the real test. For now, the platform and leadership moves show a company determined to build a durable software moat — and to plant flags in new markets before the competition corners them.