Everyone and their algorithmic trading bot knows Nvidia is the king of AI (like Elvis was to rock and roll). It’s the stock everyone’s grandma now owns because “it has something to do with robots.” 

And sure, Nvidia’s up around 27% this year, which is solid… assuming you’re okay with single-digit thrills in a world where AI is supposed to be rewriting the laws of physics. But here’s what most people don’t know: there’s another, much smaller AI stock that’s been absolutely cooking… and not in the “WNBA x Gatorade failed ad campaign” kind of way. 

We’re talking about real cooking… revenue up, customers piling in, stock chart doing pogo stick jumps. Now, Nebius Group N.V. may ring a bell because of its work with Bezos and Nvidia in the past. While Nvidia gets all the headlines for making the GPUs, Nebius figured out something smarter: just rent them out. 

Nebius is quietly taking over one of the fastest-growing corners of tech: something called GPU-as-a-Service (kinda like transportation as a service, but has nothing to do with cars).

For instance, let’s say you’re building an AI model, running a bunch of simulations, or trying to convince investors your startup isn’t two guys in a WeWork with ChatGPT subscription. Normally, you’d need to drop serious cash on high-end GPUs and server racks that cost more than a 4 year degree from the University of Michigan.

That’s the appeal of GPUaaS… it’s like tapping into a power grid instead of building your own generator. You don’t have to deal with the cost, the noise, or the maintenance. In other words, Nebius gives you the firepower without the financial meltdown… and they’re doing it so well, they’re starting to make the legacy cloud giants look like they’re stuck in time.

And Nebius is doing it better than almost anyone right now. They’re not trying to be the next AWS… they’re aiming to be the cloud just for AI. That niche focus is what’s allowed them to quietly outmaneuver giants like Amazon and Microsoft in AI infrastructure. Their architecture is optimized to scale AI projects quickly and efficiently, and they’re not reselling other people’s machines… they’ve built their own servers in-house, giving them tighter control over performance, cost, and customer experience. In a sector where timing and latency can make or break a deployment, that matters more than people think.

Now, let’s talk numbers, because numbers don’t lie (and these are no exception). In Q1 2025, Nebius reported a 385% year-over-year revenue jump, hitting $55.3 million for the quarter. Founder Arkady Volozh (formerly of Yandex, aka the “Google of Russia”) says they’re on track to reach a $750 million to $1 billion annual run rate by the end of this year. Oh, and they expect to turn adjusted EBITDA positive in the second half of 2025… something most AI companies can only dream about. Better still… their costs are shrinking as a share of revenue. That’s what Wall Street loves. That’s what gives this story real legs. That, and the fact that shares are up 157% over the last year.

If that weren’t enough to tickle your fancy, Nebius is expanding like crazy. They tripled their Finnish datacenter to 75 megawatts (which can support around 60,000 GPUs), rolled out a U.S.-based GPU cluster in Kansas City with 8x expansion potential, and launched a 10 MW colocation site in Iceland. This kind of scale doesn’t come cheap… GPUaaS is capital-intensive by nature… but Nebius has a trick up its sleeve: it’s sitting on $5 billion in cash and assets from its Yandex spinoff, most of which the market seems to be completely ignoring. 

Of course, let’s not act like this thing is risk-free. Nebius isn’t profitable yet, and it’s operating in a brutally competitive space with big dogs like CoreWeave, AWS, and Azure breathing down its neck. There’s also the question of execution: can they keep this momentum going without tripping over their own scale-up? Depends on how fast they build, and how sticky their customer base proves to be. But what we can say is that Nebius has something rare in this market: meaningful growth, a logical business model, a strong capital base, and actual differentiation. That’s a heck of a combo.

Don’t get me wrong… Nvidia is still the king of AI chips, no doubt. But Nebius is quickly becoming the prince of AI infrastructure… and it’s doing so under the radar, with better returns, stronger growth, and a story that’s only just getting started. The market may not have fully woken up to it yet, but the numbers don’t lie. This AI stock is cooking… and if it keeps this up, it won’t stay quiet much longer.

At the time this article was published Stocks.News had positions in Google, Amazon, and Microsoft as mentioned in article.