Nebius commits £1.7B to build four new UK AI sites powered by Nvidia
The Yandex spinoff is betting big on British AI infrastructure, signing a 10-year lease and projecting 65 MW of compute capacity by 2027.
Nebius Group, the AI cloud infrastructure company that emerged from Yandex’s international operations, is pouring roughly £1.7 billion (about $2.3 billion) into expanding its UK footprint with three new Nvidia-powered AI deployments. The announcement, made on June 8, positions the Nasdaq-listed company as one of the largest single investors in British AI compute capacity.
By 2027, Nebius expects to operate 65 MW of total AI capacity across four UK sites.
What the build-out actually looks like
Nebius already has boots on the ground in the UK. Its first site launched in November 2025 at Ark Data Centres in Chertsey, running on Nvidia Blackwell Ultra technology, the chipmaker’s latest and most powerful AI accelerator architecture.
The three new deployments will join that existing site to form a four-location network. One confirmed piece of the puzzle: a 10-year lease agreement for 22 MW at Kao Data’s Harlow campus.
Nebius is targeting financial services, healthcare, and life sciences. London’s status as a global financial center makes it a natural home for AI workloads tied to trading, risk modeling, and compliance automation. Healthcare and life sciences, meanwhile, represent the kind of compute-intensive research work (think drug discovery and genomic analysis) that requires exactly the infrastructure Nebius is building.
From Yandex spinoff to AI infrastructure heavyweight
Nebius was carved out of Yandex’s non-Russian operations in a $5.4 billion transaction in 2024, effectively separating the international tech assets from the Russian search giant amid geopolitical pressures.
Nebius reported $399 million in revenue for Q1 2026, representing a 684% increase year-over-year.
The company trades on Nasdaq under the ticker NBIS and has established strategic partnerships with Microsoft and Meta.
CEO Arkady Volozh, who previously led Yandex before the corporate restructuring, has pointed to the UK as a focal point for AI development.
What this means for investors
The 684% revenue growth is eye-catching, but context matters. Nebius is growing from a relatively small base following its 2024 spinoff, so percentage gains look dramatic even on modest absolute increases.
By building exclusively on Nvidia hardware, including the latest Blackwell Ultra architecture, Nebius is tying its fortunes to the dominant AI chip supplier. Any investor evaluating NBIS should be watching not just the company’s own execution, but the broader AI infrastructure spending cycle, and whether demand for AI compute proves sufficient to justify long-term lease commitments like the 10-year deal at Kao Data.
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