Meta to Spend Up to $27B on Nebius AI Infrastructure Over 5 Years, Starting With $12B in 2027
Meta plans to spend up to $27 billion over the next five years to access AI infrastructure from Amsterdam-based Nebius, starting with $12 billion of capacity in early 2027, according to Bloomberg. It’s a massive bet that adds to Meta’s already staggering $135 billion annual AI infrastructure budget.
Who Is Nebius?
Nebius is the Amsterdam-headquartered AI infrastructure company that was spun out of Yandex, the Russian tech giant, after the company reorganized following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company has been building out GPU cloud infrastructure specifically designed for AI workloads, positioning itself as an alternative to the hyperscaler cloud providers.
A $27 billion deal with Meta validates Nebius as a serious player in the AI infrastructure market and gives Meta access to compute capacity without having to build everything in-house.
Why Meta Is Outsourcing
Meta is already spending $135 billion on AI this year. The $27 billion Nebius deal suggests that even that massive budget isn’t enough. The company needs more GPU capacity than it can build on its own, and Nebius offers a way to get it faster.
This is part of a broader trend: AI companies are so desperate for compute that they’re signing multi-year, multi-billion-dollar infrastructure deals just to secure capacity. The AI compute market has become a seller’s market, and companies like Nebius are cashing in.
The Numbers in Context
Meta’s total AI spending is approaching $160 billion annually when you include the Nebius deal. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the GDP of most countries. Zuckerberg is essentially building a small nation’s worth of computing infrastructure — all to train and serve AI models.
The question every Meta shareholder should be asking: when does this investment start generating returns? AI revenue across the entire industry is still a fraction of what’s being spent on infrastructure. Meta is betting that whoever has the most compute wins the AI race. They might be right, but the bill is eye-watering.
The Bottom Line
Meta signing a $27 billion deal with Nebius shows that the AI infrastructure arms race has no ceiling. Even companies spending $135 billion a year on their own data centers need more. The winners in this race won’t just be the AI model makers — they’ll be the companies selling shovels during the gold rush. Nebius just became one of the biggest shovel sellers in the game.