Nebius negotiated a historic $17.4 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure deal with Microsoft that could transform the competitive landscape of cloud computing, becoming one of the largest deals in the history of AI start-ups and putting the Amsterdam-based company in the position to become a formidable competitor to established tech giants within the rapidly developing AI infrastructure market.
A massive five-year graphics processing unit deal has been announced
According to Mitrade, Microsoft signed a 17.4Bclouddeal with Nebius to gain long-term access to high-speed GPUs. The agreement gives Microsoft an assured supply of computing power when AI hardware is in high demand in the sky. The contract has a prospective expansion, which can add to the overall price of the contract ofย $19.4 billion in case Microsoft expands and adds capacity.
This will enable the company to react quickly to the increased AI demand. The deal amounts to one of the long-term collaborations between the two companies over a period of five years. According to analysts, it is considered to be among the largest deals that an AI start-up has ever won, and one of the biggest in the history of the AI industry.
New Jersey’s dedicated data center infrastructure
According to Converge Digest, Nebius Group entered into a multi-billion-dollar deal to supply Microsoft with dedicated GPUs, based on a new data center in Vineland, New Jersey, with the services to commence later this year. A 6-K filing pegs the base value at approximately 17.4 billion up to 2031, which can be increased to 19.4 billion in the case of the acquisition of additional services by Microsoft.
The Vineland plant is a component of the U.S. build-out by Nebius, which is aiming at up to 300 MW of the New Jersey facility and capacity addition in Kansas City and Iceland. Nebius has also been deploying H2O0 and Blackwell-class clusters of GPUs in Europe, including Paris, and a coming deployment in the UK.
Diversification in the face of crisis due to shortages in GPUs
In the case of Microsoft, the acquisition underlines its determination to remain at the top of the competition in designing and implementing artificial intelligence. To Nebius, it is a victory of proportions, proving it as an international supplier at the top of AI infrastructure. This news follows the fact that Microsoft had surpassed Wall Street forecasts, reporting quarterly earnings of $3.65 per share and revenue of 76.44 billion, compared to a record of 73.89 billion.
Nebius becomes a big player in AI infrastructure
The core AI cloud business that Nebius serves, customers ranging from AI startups to enterprises, is doing extraordinarily well… I am pleased to announce the first of those contracts, and I hope there will be more of them, said Founder and CEO Arkady Volozh. Nebius, however, interprets the deal as being transformative. A spin-off of the Russian technology company Yandex, the Amsterdam company is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the sphere of global AI infrastructure.
Nebius’ stock had risen over 60 percent in early trade on the news. The deal was met well by investors as it showed that the AI cloud services offered by Nebius were in high demand. Nebius is also guaranteed by the contract a stable stream of income over the years. That stability will enable it to expand its footprint on a global scale, invest in more data centers, and position its AI meeting cloud.
This historic deal places both companies in a strong position to deal with the artificial intelligence revolution in the future. Microsoft gains access to critical infrastructure capacity, and Nebius proves its ability to become a significant player that is able to compete with industry giants, which preconditions the further development of rivalry in the fast-growing AI infrastructure market.