Nebius Group N.V. NBIS and C3.ai, Inc. AI are capitalizing on the rapid adoption of AI, but they are pursuing distinct growth strategies to capture the expanding market opportunity. While Nebius is building an AI-native cloud infrastructure platform with a focus on hyperscale computing capacity, C3.ai is strengthening its enterprise AI software business through organizational changes, product enhancements and broader adoption of AI across its operations.
Both companies remain focused on expanding their AI capabilities and scaling their businesses to meet rising enterprise demand. However, their growth strategies, execution priorities and business models differ significantly, making the comparison important for investors seeking exposure to the AI sector.
Let’s evaluate their fundamentals, growth prospects, market challenges and valuations to determine which stock presents a stronger investment opportunity.
The Case for NBIS
Nebius is rapidly expanding its AI-native hyperscaler platform by investing aggressively in capacity, products, customers and capital to strengthen its position in the AI infrastructure market. During the first quarter of 2026, the company increased its contracted power capacity from more than 2 gigawatts to more than 3.5 gigawatts and now expects to reach at least 4 gigawatts by the end of 2026. It also announced a new Pennsylvania facility that will support 1.2 gigawatts of power when fully operational. More than 75% of its contracted capacity is now owned, supporting its strategy of building a vertically integrated full-stack AI cloud platform. Management stated that the company is executing across four key pillars, capacity and scale, product and functionality, customers and demand, and capital, while remaining focused on disciplined execution across each area.
The company continues to expand beyond compute into cloud services that cover the complete AI lifecycle, including bare-metal infrastructure, multi-tenancy, inference and emerging agentic capabilities. NBIS strengthened its software and AI offerings through the acquisitions of Tavily, Eigen AI and Clarifai, which added experienced AI engineers and researchers while improving inference optimization, Token Factory capabilities and agentic search functionality. Management emphasized that these acquisitions accelerate product development, deepen customer engagement and strengthen Nebius’ position as a full-stack AI cloud provider capable of serving a broader range of AI workloads.
Nebius is further reinforcing its AI leadership through an expanded partnership with NVIDIA Corporation NVDA. The company achieved NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud status for GB300 training workloads, making it one of only a small number of cloud providers recognized across multiple GPU generations. Management noted that the partnership extends beyond hardware, providing differentiated GPU supply, closer collaboration on future NVIDIA platforms and deeper software integration for inference and agentic AI workloads. These initiatives strengthen Nebius’ vertically integrated AI cloud platform while supporting future deployments built around NVIDIA’s latest technologies.
Customer demand for Nebius’ AI infrastructure remains exceptionally strong across AI-native companies, enterprises and software vendors, as well as industries including fintech, physical AI, life sciences, manufacturing, energy and pharmaceuticals. Management stated that several customers typically compete for every GPU brought online, while first-quarter pipeline generation increased 3.5 times sequentially. Demand continues to exceed available capacity, allowing the company to maintain strong pricing across GPU generations, extend contract durations, increase average contract values and receive growing customer prepayments to secure future AI capacity. The company also highlighted increasing momentum for its inference-focused Token Factory platform as AI adoption expands across enterprise and developer workloads.
Nebius delivered outstanding financial and operational performance during the first quarter, reflecting the strength of its expanding AI cloud business. Group revenue increased 684% year over year, while the Nebius AI business recorded 841% revenue growth and reached an annualized run-rate revenue of $1.9 billion. Group adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 32%, while the Nebius AI business achieved a 45% adjusted EBITDA margin. The balance sheet was further strengthened by a $4.3 billion convertible note offering, a $2 billion equity investment from NVIDIA and record customer prepayments, increasing cash and cash equivalents to $9.3 billion. Supported by this momentum, the company reaffirmed its 2026 guidance for annualized run-rate revenue of $7-$9 billion, group revenue of $3-$3.4 billion and an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 40%.
However, Nebius expects quarterly adjusted EBITDA margins to fluctuate during 2026 as it invests ahead of future capacity deployment. Management indicated that margins are likely to decline in the second quarter because infrastructure investments and operating expenses will be recognized before newly deployed capacity begins generating revenue. The company has also increased its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $20-$25 billion from the previous $16-$20 billion range to support additional AI infrastructure planned for 2027. Nebius expects to utilize a combination of asset-backed financing, corporate debt, customer prepayments and other funding alternatives while maintaining a disciplined capital structure.
The Case for AI
C3.ai is gaining from a broad restructuring initiative aimed at strengthening execution across the business. The company has reorganized its sales, products, services and federal operations under new leadership while introducing a strategic plan with clearly defined objectives. Product development has been consolidated under a single organization responsible for designing, developing, quality-assuring and delivering products, while the services organization has been redesigned with dedicated customer teams to support deployments through completion. Management highlighted that these changes are intended to improve customer satisfaction, enable more successful deployments and support the expansion of enterprise customer relationships.
The company is expanding its AI-first strategy by integrating agentic AI tools across the organization to improve productivity and execution. The company stated that its product teams are now using AI tools for programming activities, while legal, finance, sales and marketing functions have also adopted these agentic technologies. Sales teams are utilizing these tools to enhance market development, business development and customer penetration strategies. Management added that employees across every function are operating with an agentic AI-first mindset as the company focuses on execution and improving overall business performance.
C3.ai also highlighted several operational strengths, including a strong liquidity position and continued customer engagement. In fourth-quarter fiscal 2026, it signed nine initial production deployments, bringing the cumulative total to 417, with 251 remaining active through ongoing deployments, extensions or subscription and consumption agreements. Management also stated that cost reduction initiatives are progressing as planned and are expected to improve operating efficiency, free cash flow and support the company’s long-term objectives.
However, C3.ai continues to face challenges from weak financial performance and declining revenue. Management acknowledged that the company’s recent performance has been disappointing, describing sales execution as unacceptable and attributing the decline in revenue, remaining performance obligations and profitability primarily to poor sales discipline. The company reported quarterly revenue of $51.6 million, a non-GAAP operating loss of $54.4 million, a non-GAAP net loss of $48.8 million and negative free cash flow of $54.8 million.
C3.ai also indicated that uncertainty remains as it implements its new go-to-market strategy. On the lastearnings call management stated that the company has changed its sales organization and go-to-market approach, making it difficult to predict the future mix between software revenue, professional services, prioritized engineering services and demonstration licenses.
Share Performance for NBIS & AI
In the past six months, NBIS stock has surged 79.8% while AI lost 30.1%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Valuation for NBIS & AI
In terms of Price/Book, NBIS shares are trading at 6.21X, higher than AI’s 2X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
How Do Estimates Compare for NBIS & AI?
Over the past 60 days, analysts have marginally revised estimates upward for NBIS’ bottom line for the current year.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
For AI, estimates have been revised significantly upward over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NBIS or AI: Which Stock is the Better Investment?
While NBIS sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present, C3.ai has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Consequently, in terms of Zacks Rank, NBIS seems to be a better pick at the moment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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C3.ai, Inc. (AI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS) : Free Stock Analysis Report
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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