Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) shares jumped over 20% Wednesday, days after Michael Burry disclosed a short position, as the AI infrastructure company said the expected payback period on its latest deals had fallen below two years.
Nebius now expects to recoup the capex and related operating costs on its second-quarter deals in one year and 10 months, down from its previous range of two to three years.
Burry disclosed short positions in Nebius at $211.77 and Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), saying the two trades felt “a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Burry’s concern with the AI buildout comes down largely to the returns on enormous capital spending: billions are going into chips and data centers today, with uncertainty over how much those assets will ultimately earn.
Wednesday’s results offered a direct counterpoint: Nebius says the returns on that spending are arriving faster, with projected payback periods falling below two years.
Nebius Says Its AI Payback Period Is Getting Shorter
CEO Arkady Volozh described the quarter as a step-change in the economics of the business, saying Nebius could sell all of its 2027 capacity on those terms today but is deliberately holding some back.
Revenue rose 454% to $582.3 million, while adjusted EBITDA swung to $236.2 million from a $21 million loss a year earlier.
Second-quarter deals generated more than $20 million in annual contract value per megawatt, versus a roughly $12 million base for 2026. Around 70% of those deals included prepayments, which cover 50% to 60% of the associated capex.
Why That Matters for Burry’s Short
Burry isn’t arguing that nobody wants AI compute. His concern is what happens if companies lock in billions of dollars of long-term infrastructure commitments and the returns fail to keep pace.
If the sub-two-year payback holds, it weakens an important part of Burry’s thesis. But Nebius is still spending aggressively, raising its year-end contracted-power target to 5 gigawatts and taking on more upfront capital needs in the process.
Prediction Traders Aren’t Betting on an AI Bust
Prediction-market traders aren’t pricing an imminent collapse in the AI infrastructure boom. Polymarket gives a roughly 15% chance of an AI-industry downturn by the end of 2026, with nearly $3 million wagered on the market.
The contract sets a high bar, requiring at least three major stress signals within 90 days, including Nvidia falling 50% from its record high, the SOXX semiconductor ETF dropping 40% or H100 compute rental prices collapsing to $1 per hour.
Nebius’ latest results point in the opposite direction for now: the company says its first Blackwell capacity auction cleared the highest price it has achieved to date, while projected payback on its newest deals has fallen below two years.
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