Nebius Group unveiled plans on August 19 to raise $4.5 billion through convertible senior notes, marking one of the largest capital injections into AI infrastructure this year and signaling that the race for computing capacity is only beginning.
The Nasdaq-listed company, which has repositioned itself as a pure-play AI cloud provider, announced the offering would be split into two tranches: $2.75 billion due in 2030 and $1.75 billion due in 2034. Initial purchasers have the option to upsize the deal to roughly $5.2 billion, underscoring strong institutional appetite for exposure to the AI buildout.
Nebius has already launched its first UK data center at Ark Data Centres in Chertsey, hosting NVIDIA hardware, and has committed £1.7 billion toward three additional NVIDIA-based deployments targeting a combined 65 megawatts by 2027. The new capital will accelerate that timeline and fund expansion across Europe and the United States.
The move reflects a broader industry scramble to secure compute capacity. AI cloud revenue at Nebius surged more than 500% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026, yet demand continues to outpace supply. Rivals including CoreWeave, Lambda, and Crusoe have raised billions in recent months to build competing infrastructure.
Despite the growth story, Nebius shares fell approximately 8% on the announcement as investors priced in potential dilution from the convertible notes. The company also disclosed plans to exchange portions of its existing 2029 and 2031 convertible notes for Class A ordinary shares, a move that could further dilute current holders.
The fundraise comes as hyperscalers including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon collectively plan to spend more than $200 billion on data centers and AI infrastructure in 2026 alone. Nebius is positioning itself as an alternative for startups and enterprises that cannot secure capacity from the cloud giants directly.
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