Amsterdam-headquartered Nebius, which builds full-stack AI infrastructure for tech firms, has secured $700mn in a private equity deal led by Nvidia, Accel, and asset manager Orbis.The funding comes in the form of a private placement when a company sells stocks directly to a private investor instead of on the public market. The deal will see Nebius issue 33.3 million Class A shares at $21 apiece.Nebius, which is the rebranded European arm of Russias Google, Yandex, is investing more than $1bn across Europe by mid-2025 as it seeks to cash in on booming demand for AI computing power. It also recently announced plans to build its first GPU cluster in the US. We have demonstrated the scale of our ambitions, initiating an AI infrastructure build-out across two continents, said Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius. This strategic financing gives us additional firepower to do it faster and on a larger scale.Nebius expansion strategy includes constructing new custom data centres and expanding existing facilities, like its data centre in Finland which we visited in October. It will also deploy additional capacity through colocation.The of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!Volozh aims for Nebius to be a Phoenix rising from the ashes of what remained of Yandex following the companys divestment from Russia earlier this year. The $5.4bn deal constituted the largest corporate exit from the country since the start of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine over two years ago.Nebius core product is an AI-centric cloud platform for intense AI workloads. The company is also one of the launch partners for Nvidias fabled Blackwell GPUs, however, this investment does not guarantee that.The deal is not about the GPUs, Volozh told Bloomberg. But, of course, it shows our close relationship, which we hope will influence our pipeline.Investors are pouring huge sums of money into AI compute. The global AI infrastructure market size is projected to grow from $46.15bn in 2024 to $356.14bn by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. One competitor to Nebius, US firm CoreWeave, is preparing for an IPO that could put the company, founded in 2017, at a $35bn valuation. Story by Sin Geschwindt Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecos (show all) Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecosystem. He's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. Sin has five years journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Get the TNW newsletterGet the most important tech news in your inbox each week.Also tagged with