Amsterdam-based AI infrastructure firm Nebius saw its shares surge nearly 12% on Monday after announcing plans to acquire Eigen AI in a deal valued at about $643 million, marking a significant step in its push toward production-grade artificial intelligence and expanding its footprint in the United States.
The transaction, unveiled on Friday, includes approximately $98 million in cash and 3.8 million Nebius shares, with the valuation tied to the company’s 30-day weighted average stock price.
The deal is expected to strengthen Nebius’s position in the increasingly competitive market for AI inference, where companies are racing to maximize the output of computing infrastructure.
Strengthening inference capabilities
Nebius, backed by Nvidia, said the acquisition will enhance its Nebius Token Factory, positioning it as a managed inference platform designed for production-scale AI applications.
By integrating Eigen AI’s optimisation stack with its existing AI cloud platform, the company aims to improve efficiency and reduce costs for customers deploying large-scale models.
Eigen AI, a 20-person startup founded by alumni of a prominent MIT artificial intelligence lab, focuses on optimizing the performance of leading open-source models developed by companies such as OpenAI, Alibaba Group, Meta Platforms and Nvidia.
Its technology is designed to extract more performance from existing hardware, a capability that is becoming critical as demand for AI computing continues to surge.
Roman Chernin, Nebius co-founder and chief business officer, said Eigen’s tools help maximise the number of tokens generated per Nvidia chip during inference, or the process of running AI models.
That efficiency could enable Nebius to deliver more cost-effective services at a time when compute resources remain expensive and constrained.
Chernin likened the competition in inference optimisation to an “Olympic sport,” suggesting that Eigen’s team could provide a meaningful edge in improving Nebius’s capabilities.
Momentum from major partnerships
The acquisition builds on a series of high-profile commercial agreements that have fueled investor enthusiasm for Nebius.
The company disclosed in its annual report that it is set to receive $7 billion upfront as part of a broader $17 billion deal with Microsoft, a development that helped lift its shares sharply last week.
In addition, Nebius has secured long-term contracts with major technology players, including a March agreement with Meta Platforms to supply up to $27 billion worth of computing capacity over five years.
The company also attracted a $2 billion investment from Nvidia, underscoring confidence in its infrastructure strategy.
These deals have propelled Nebius to the forefront of the AI infrastructure race, with its stock emerging as a top performer among cloud and AI-focused companies in recent months.
Strategic pivot and outlook
Nebius’s rapid expansion follows its transition into a pure-play AI infrastructure provider after separating from Russian technology group Yandex.
The company’s agreement with Microsoft, signed last September, is widely viewed as a key test of its ability to execute on this strategic pivot.
For investors, the acquisition of Eigen AI highlights Nebius’s focus on a critical segment of the AI value chain: inference efficiency.
As companies increasingly look to scale AI deployments while managing costs, the ability to generate more output from existing hardware is emerging as a key differentiator.
With strong backing from major technology firms and a growing portfolio of contracts, Nebius appears well positioned to capitalise on the next phase of the AI boom, where operational efficiency and infrastructure performance will play a defining role.
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