“Our strategy is to build and control as much as possible”, says Nebius co-founder

The co-founder of AI infrastructure startup Nebius says its strategy is to build as many of its own data centres as it can, saying it plans to "build and control as much as possible”. 

Nebius, which is sometimes referred to as a neocloud, is backed by Nvidia. It builds and operates data centres, packing them with GPUs, then offers access to these data centres to AI and enterprise companies needing compute power, as well as offering them specialised software to run AI applications.

This year, Amsterdam-headquartered Nebius has signed blockbuster deals with Microsoft, worth over $17bn, and Meta, worth $3bn, to supply them with AI infrastructure and compute power.

In the podcast, Roman Chernin, co-founder and chief growth officer, Nebius, discusses the two blockbuster deals and some of its other AI and enterprise clients. He also talks about Nebius’s approach to housing data centres, whether it would build more of its own or co-locate.

Chernin said: “Our strategy is long-term build and control as much as possible, and I think in a few years from now, the majority of the fleet will be run on physical infrastructure that is ours. But in the meantime, we are obviously partnering with others just to move faster.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Chernin discusses data centre energy demands, Nebius’s green credentials, and its plans for the next few years.