Nebius Launches On-Premises Partner Program to Expand AI Cloud Capacity

Nebius, the AI cloud platform founded by Arkady Volozh, has introduced a new on-premises partner offering that allows third-party data center operators to deploy its full-stack cloud platform within their own facilities. The move marks a strategic shift toward an asset-light model designed to rapidly scale Nebius' compute footprint without directly financing all underlying infrastructure.

Under the partnership model, partners will finance and own the hardware and data center operations, while Nebius provides the systems architecture, deploys and maintains the software and hardware, and takes the resulting capacity to market. This arrangement, according to the company, gives partners a fast route to serving the AI cloud market and enables them to begin generating returns as soon as the infrastructure goes live. For Nebius, the model adds incremental capacity from partner data centers to its existing capacity pool, complementing what it sources from its own owned facilities and colocation sites.

Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius, said the new approach gives infrastructure partners a flexible way to benefit from the explosive growth of AI. “Our software allows partners to reach a much wider customer base with much better margins than conventional wholesale bare-metal contracts,” he said. “We're inviting data center investors, regional partners and others with capacity or capital to contribute to join us in serving this demand – combining their assets and local strengths with Nebius's technology, platform, operational expertise and customer demand.”

The company said it is pursuing a variety of economic arrangements under the partnership model, including revenue-sharing agreements, licensing fees, commissions, and committed capacity structures. Several initial agreements have already been signed. The offering follows a similar pattern to on-premises programs from major hyperscalers, such as Oracle Alloy, which allows partners to deploy Oracle hardware to create their own cloud environment. Other comparable offerings include Google Distributed Cloud, Microsoft's Azure Local, and Amazon Web Services' AWS Outposts, though those are typically designed for a customer's own internal use rather than for resale to third parties.

By adopting this model, Nebius positions itself to compete more directly with hyperscalers while avoiding the capital intensity of building and owning all its data center capacity. The program targets data center investors, regional operators, and other organizations with existing infrastructure or capital, offering them a path to participate in the growing AI cloud market without needing to develop their own software platform or customer ecosystem.