Nvidia to invest $2 billion in Nebius, helping the former Yandex build a global AI cloud

Nvidia has agreed a strategic partnership with Nebius, a company that grew out of the former Yandex N.V. The American chipmaker will buy $2 billion in warrants and help its partner speed up construction of a next-generation AI cloud.

What the deal covers

On March 11, 2026, Nvidia and Nebius announced an agreement that combines an investment with technology cooperation. Nvidia is buying warrants for Nebius shares worth $2 billion, and Nebius gets resources to build data centers faster and expand its Full-Stack AI Cloud platform.

This is not just financial support: the deal cements Nvidia's long-term interest in one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure providers outside the classic hyperscalers.

Under the terms, Nebius will issue warrants to buy 21 million Class A shares, about 8.5% of the total. Each warrant gives the right to buy one share at par value, and can be exercised at any time. For the first six months after issuance, Nvidia cannot sell or pledge these securities without Nebius's consent. Nebius plans to put the proceeds toward new data centers and scaling its cloud business.

What Nvidia brings

The partnership covers almost the entire AI stack, from infrastructure design to cluster operations and the software layer for inference. According to the companies, Nvidia will also help Nebius adopt new generations of its platform faster and support the deployment of more than 5 GW of capacity by the end of 2030. For the market, it is a signal that Nebius is seen not as an ordinary GPU reseller but as an anchor partner for building large AI factories.

• AI factory design and technical support for launch
• Access to early hardware samples and system software
• Joint development of a stack for inference and agentic AI
• Early adoption of the Rubin platform, Vera CPU and BlueField systems
• GPU fleet health monitoring and operational recommendations

"Nebius was built for AI from the start, rather than adapted from a general-purpose cloud," said

Arkady Volozh.

The logic is clear for Nvidia too. It is not limiting itself to selling accelerators; it is helping shape an ecosystem of cloud players that will buy its products for years to come. For Nebius, this means not only money but also access to engineering expertise, earlier hardware and extra weight in negotiations with large corporate clients. In effect, the partner gets both capital and technological priority in one deal.

How Nebius grew

Nebius is registered in the Netherlands and was formerly known as Yandex N.V., the holding company that owned Russia's Yandex. After trading was halted on Nasdaq in 2022, the company began a large-scale restructuring, and in 2024 it sold its Russian assets to a group of investors for 475 billion rubles. The remaining international assets were then gathered under the Nebius brand, and Arkady Volozh returned to lead the company. Trading in its shares on Nasdaq later resumed.

The new strategy is built around AI infrastructure. Nebius is deploying Nvidia-based data centers in the US, the UK and France, while raising capital for growth. The company previously raised $700 million from investors that reportedly included Nvidia, Accel and Orbis Investments. In 2025, Nebius also signed major AI capacity supply contracts with Microsoft and Meta*, and in 2026 it agreed to buy Tavily, a provider of agentic AI solutions.

What it means

The deal shows that the next stage of the AI race is being fought not only at the level of models but also at the level of infrastructure. Nvidia is effectively betting $2 billion that independent AI clouds can take a noticeable share of the market from traditional providers. For Nebius, it is a chance to secure its place among the most visible players of the new wave: a company that sells not just compute but a full stack for training, inference and running AI products.

*Meta has been designated an extremist organization and is banned in Russia.