There are 2 distinct types of polls:
1) accurately reflects voter sentiment to guide strategy and spending.
2) fake numbers meant to manipulate people and raise money.
One kind is public-facing. The other kind stays private. Guess which is which.
Oh my did I make a mistake tonight. I wrote about Mel Brooks in the past tense.
But he abides at 100 years old in the present tense.
I corrected my post.
What a dunce.
$NBIS: Asset-Light Model Explained
I'm getting a lot of questions about this, so let's clear things up.
Is Nebius' asset-light model a source of recurring or non-recurring revenue? 🧐
The answer is both.
First, let's understand how it works.
Traditionally, Nebius needs to spend billions building data centers and buying GPUs before it can start generating revenue.
With the asset-light model, another company provides the capital to finance the infrastructure, while Nebius provides its technology, expertise, and AI cloud platform.
This allows Nebius to expand its business without having to finance all the underlying infrastructure itself.
Now, the company can generate revenue at two different stages:
1) Initial Phase: Non-Recurring Revenue
Imagine a company that has the money to build an AI data center but wants to use Nebius' technology and expertise to get everything ready.
Nebius helps secure the capacity, equipment supply chain, and infrastructure architecture needed for the project.
It can recognize revenue for this initial work before the infrastructure even starts operating.
That's where the $325M in non-recurring revenue recognized in Q3 came from.
It's considered non-recurring because it's associated with the initial phase of a specific transaction. That same phase doesn't repeat every quarter.
2) Operational Phase: Potentially Recurring Revenue
Once the partner-funded infrastructure becomes operational, customers can use that capacity through Nebius' AI cloud platform.
Nebius can then generate additional revenue as that capacity is sold and used.
Unlike the initial phase, this revenue can potentially continue over time.
Now, here's the important distinction.
Just because the $325M was classified as non-recurring doesn't mean Nebius can't generate similar revenue again.
Think about it this way:
Every time Nebius signs another asset-light partnership, it could potentially recognize additional revenue from the initial deployment phase.
Each transaction is individually non-recurring, but if the company keeps signing new agreements, these payments could eventually become a regular source of revenue.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure from previous partnerships can continue generating additional revenue as it becomes operational.
That's why management expects asset-light revenue to become a more regular part of the business as the number of partnerships grows.
What about 2027?
Some people are confused because management said the asset-light model would contribute to available capacity at a small scale in 2027.
But that's referring to the amount of operational capacity added through these partnerships, not necessarily the revenue recognized from new transactions.
In fact, management confirmed that potential revenue from additional asset-light partnerships wasn't included in its initial $12–13B revenue guidance for 2027.
We still need more information about the economics of these agreements, particularly their profitability and how frequently they can be replicated.
However, I genuinely believe this could become an increasingly valuable part of Nebius' business model, allowing the company to monetize its technology and expertise without having to finance all the underlying infrastructure itself.
Hope this helps!
A pitch, if I may:
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It is a contemporary journal. We break stories. We go deep on stories. We have no political agenda, but we do have a cultural agenda: To stir the American spirit in its depths, with wit, with honesty, with knowledge.
The paper is not a nostalgia act. Nor is it a captive of the moment. An issue from two years ago is as fresh as the latest issue. Our stories come from every corner of the country & they don't date or expire. They shine on.
Please subscribe. I suspect you will be pleasantly... astonished.
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Nothing beats geopolitics for nonstop ass-hattery. Every useless poli sci major (or how I went to college to really learn to read the NYT super insightfully) feels the need to lube us up and slide their morbidly obese thoughts all over us with their impossibly shit-worthless view of the world.
$NVDA On Jensen Huang's troubles:
“Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden.”
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
— Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, 1784, Sixth Proposition
NEBIUS Q3 EARNINGS
since the start of Q3, customers committed more than $12B to @nebiusai
On deals signed in Q3, prepayments covered more than 100% of the capex behind them, construction and networking included.
-> Three months earlier it was 50-60%.
Prices per GPU-hour rose 22% on average versus Q2.
that's what happens when compute is scarce and people know it.
the market is setting the price:
- contract value per MW past $25M a year, up from $20M+
- reserve auctions cleared 15%+ above reserve
- short-term clusters at more than 2x the reserved rate
- payback down to 1 year 7 months
the customer base broadened:
- Databricks, Datadog and Snowflake signed for the first time
- Cognition chose us for its first at scale Vera Rubin clusters
- five-year AI cloud deals, all expansions by existing customers
- AI cloud deals went from $1B+ to multi-billion in a few months
the stack got deeper:
- @nebiustf contract value up 17x
- first AI cloud to adopt NVIDIA Groq 3 LPX
- leading per-GPU MLPerf Inference result on DeepSeek R1
- Platinum in SemiAnalysis ClusterMAX 3.0
the business underneath:
- revenue $981M, up 68% in a quarter
- AI cloud adjusted EBITDA margin 53%
- 4 GW+ of power contracted, heading to 5
a year ago the question was whether anyone would pay this much for compute. now they pay up front.
Palantir honors America’s veterans and their families.
We are grateful for their service, their sacrifices, and the freedoms they helped defend.
To all who served, and to the families who support them: We thank you.
Palantir honors America’s veterans and their families.
We are grateful for their service, their sacrifices, and the freedoms they helped defend.
To all who served, and to the families who support them: We thank you.