AI Research
Prediction: This Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Will Be the Next Household Name by 2031
For now, the “Magnificent Seven” and select others remain the most popular names in the AI arena.
Over the last few years, companies like Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms dominated the narrative around artificial intelligence (AI). As the conversation shifted beyond chips and into adjacent applications in data centers and software, names such as Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Palantir Technologies also stepped into the spotlight.
It’s no secret that the AI trade remains heavily concentrated within a small circle of big tech giants. But savvy investors know that opportunity doesn’t end with the usual suspects.
So here’s the question: Have you heard of Nebius Group (NBIS 50.52%)? If not, you’re not alone.
This sprawling data center company has flown under the radar — but its unique position in the AI ecosystem could propel it into the spotlight and make it a household name very soon.
Nebius took an unconventional route to the AI revolution
Unlike many of its louder peers, Nebius did not emerge as a flashy start-up or an established tech titan already entrenched in the AI race. Instead, the company traces its roots back to Yandex — a Russian internet conglomerate.
As geopolitical tensions from the Russia-Ukraine war escalated, Yandex moved to divest its noncore assets. From that process, Nebius was spun off, and it was listed on the Nasdaq exchange last October.
Soon after, Nebius completed a capital raise that attracted a particularly notable participant: Nvidia. The undisputed leader in AI chips not only became an investor but also established itself as a strategic ally — lending Nebius a level of credibility that few companies can claim.
At its core, Nebius can be considered a neocloud — a business specializing in building AI infrastructure by constructing data centers and renting out Nvidia’s sought-after graphics processing units (GPUs) to other businesses via the cloud. This model positions Nebius to scale up in lockstep with Nvidia, benefiting as next-generation chips like Blackwell and Rubin enter the market.
Image source: Getty Images.
Nebius is more than GPUs
While infrastructure is its core business, Nebius operates several subsidiaries and also has notable strategic investments.
Toloka is in the business of data labeling, an important component of training datasets for AI models. The company also has exposure to autonomous driving systems and robotics through Avride and maintains a software platform called TripleTen that specializes in educating developers across various AI applications.
Nebius also has an equity stake in ClickHouse, an open-source database management and analytics system.
This diversified ecosystem positions Nebius beyond chips and provides the company with exposure to a number of potentially trillion-dollar ancillary markets as AI workloads become larger and more advanced.
Is Nebius stock a buy right now?
In December 2024, Nebius’s core infrastructure segment closed the year with an annualized run rate of $90 million. Just two quarters later (by June 30), the company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) run rate surged to $430 million. Even more compelling is that management recently raised full-year guidance to a range of $900 million to $1.1 billion from its prior outlook of $750 million to $1 billion.
On Sept. 8, however, everything changed for Nebius as news broke that the company signed a massive new deal with Microsoft. According to regulatory filings, Nebius “will provide Microsoft access to dedicated GPU infrastructure capacity” at its data center in New Jersey. The contract is worth $17.4 billion and runs through 2031.
Prior to the deal with Microsoft, Nebius boasted a market capitalization of $15.4 billion — implying a forward price-to-sales ratio of about 14 at the high end of its ARR forecast. For context, that’s about half the multiple CoreWeave commanded at its peak earlier this year following its much-hyped initial public offering.
CRWV PS Ratio data by YCharts
This suggests a couple of takeaways. On one hand, Nebius’s valuation has been swept up in the broader bullish AI narrative — leaving traces of froth. On the other, the stock has remained relatively insulated from the sharp pullbacks seen in more volatile peers like CoreWeave — a dynamic that could play in its favor as it continues to fight for mindshare in an increasingly crowded and competitive market.
Looking ahead, Nebius appears positioned to benefit from secular tailwinds fueling AI infrastructure. Microsoft’s new deal emphasizes that cloud hyperscalers are showing no signs of slowing their capital expenditure, and Nebius is already steadily carving out a role as a beneficiary of that spending.
I think Nebius will be trading materially higher than it is today by next decade as its relationship with Microsoft matures. That makes it, in my view, a compelling buy-and-hold opportunity.
Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palantir Technologies, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and Nebius Group and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
In a LinkedIn post, Miguel Luengo-Oroz, co-founder and CEO of Spotlab.ai, confirmed the company is hiring an Artificial Intelligence Research Scientist. The role is aimed at early career researchers, postdoctoral candidates, and recent PhD graduates in AI.
Luengo-Oroz writes: “Are you a young independent researcher, postdoc, just finished your PhD (or on the way there) in AI and wondering what’s next? If you’re curious, ready to tackle tough scientific and technical challenges, and want to build AI for something that matters, this might be for you.”
Spotlab.ai targets diagnostics role with new hire
The position will focus on building and deploying multimodal AI solutions for diagnostics and biopharma research. Applications include blood cancers and neglected tropical diseases.
The scientist will be expected to organize and prepare biomedical datasets, train and test AI models, and deploy algorithms in real-world conditions. The job description highlights interaction with medical specialists and product managers, as well as drafting technical documentation. Scientific publications are a priority, with the candidate expected to contribute across the research cycle from experiment planning to peer review.
Spotlab.ai is looking for candidates with experience in areas such as biomedical image processing, computer vision, NLP, video processing, and large language models. Proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks including TensorFlow, Keras, and PyTorch is required, with GPU programming experience considered an advantage.
Company positions itself in global health AI
Spotlab.ai develops multimodal AI for diagnostics and biopharma research, with projects addressing gaps in hematology, infectious diseases, and neglected tropical diseases. The Madrid-based startup team combines developers, engineers, doctors, and business managers, with an emphasis on gender parity and collaboration across disciplines.
CEO highlights global mission
Alongside the job listing, Luengo-Oroz underscored the company’s broader mission. A former Chief Data Scientist at the United Nations, he has worked on technology strategies in areas ranging from food security to epidemics and conflict prevention. He is also the inventor of MalariaSpot.org, a collective intelligence videogame for malaria diagnosis.
Luengo-Oroz writes: “Take the driver’s seat of our train (not just a minion) at key stages of the journey, designing AI systems and doing science at Champions League level from Madrid.”
Courtesy Brandi Smith
Rice is bringing generative artificial intelligence into the creative writing world with this fall’s new course, “ENGL 306: AI Fictions.” Ian Schimmel, an associate teaching professor in the English and creative writing department, said he teaches the course to help students think critically about technology and consider the ways that AI models could be used in the creative processes of fiction writing.
The course is structured for any level of writer and also includes space to both incorporate and resist the influence of AI, according to its description.
“In this class, we never sit down with ChatGPT and tell it to write us a story and that’s that,” Schimmel wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We don’t use it to speed up the artistic process, either. Instead, we think about how to incorporate it in ways that might expand our thinking.”
Schimmel said he was stunned by the capabilities of ChatGPT when it was initially released in 2022, wondering if it truly possessed the ability to write. He said he found that the topic generated more questions than answers.
The next logical step, for Schimmel, was to create a course centered on exploring the complexities of AI and fiction writing, with assigned readings ranging from New York Times opinion pieces critical of its usage to an AI-generated poetry collection.
Schimmel said both students and faculty share concerns about how AI can help or harm academic progress and potentially cripple human creativity.
“Classes that engage students with AI might be some of the best ways to learn about what these systems can and cannot do,” Schimmel wrote. “There are so many things that AI is terrible at and incapable of. Seeing that firsthand is empowering. Whenever it hallucinates, glitches or makes you frustrated, you suddenly remember: ‘Oh right — this is a machine. This is nothing like me.”
“Fear is intrinsic to anything that shakes industry like AI is doing,” Robert Gray, a Brown College senior, wrote in an email to the Thresher. “I am taking this class so that I can immerse myself in that fear and learn how to navigate these new industrial landscapes.”
The course approaches AI from a fluid perspective that evolves as the class reads and writes more with the technology, Schimmel said. Their answers to the complex ethical questions surrounding AI usage evolve with this.
“At its core, the technology is fundamentally unethical,” Schimmel wrote. “It was developed and enhanced, without permission, on copyrighted text and personal data and without regard for the environment. So in that failed historical context, the question becomes: what do we do now? Paradoxically, the best way for us to formulate and evidence arguments against this technology might be to get to know it on a deep and personal level.”
Generative AI is often criticized for its ethicality, such as the energy output and water demanded for its data centers to function or how the models are trained based on data sets of existing copyrighted works.
Amazon and Google-backed Anthropic recently settled a class-action lawsuit with a group of U.S. authors who accused the company of using millions of pirated books to train its Claude chatbot to respond to human prompts.
With the assistance of AI, students will be able to attempt large-scale projects that typically would not be possible within a single semester, according to the course overview. AI will accelerate the writing process for drafting a book outline, and students can “collaborate” with AI to write the opening chapters of a novel for NaNoWriMo, a worldwide writing event held every November where participants would produce a 50,000-word first draft of a novel.
NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, announced its closing after more than 20 years in spring 2025. It received widespread press coverage for a statement released in 2024 that said condemnation of AI in writing “has classist and ableist undertones.” Many authors spoke out against the perceived endorsement of using generative AI for writing and the implication that disabled writers would require AI to produce work.
Each weekly class involves experimentation in dialogues and writing sessions with ChatGPT, with Schimmel and his students acknowledging the unknown and unexplored within AI and especially the visual and literary arts. Aspects of AI, from creative copyrights to excessive water usage to its accuracy as an editor, were discussed in one Friday session in the Wiess College classroom.
“We’re always better off when we pay attention to our attention. If there’s a topic (or tech) that creates worry, or upset, or raises difficult questions, then that’s a subject that we should pursue,” Schimmel wrote. “It’s in those undefined, sometimes uncomfortable places where we humans do our best, most important learning.”
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