Meet the Monster Stock that Continues to Crush the Market

Key Points

• This AI cloud platform provider is in the right market at the right time.

• It has strong connections with big players, including Nvidia, Shopify, and Uber.

• Its stock should continue to soar thanks to soaring demand for AI.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nebius Group ›

Many investors are on cloud nine right now. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is near the highest level ever. Worries about the economy, inflation, and the impact of tariffs aren't holding the market back.

But cloud nine isn't high enough for some. If you aren't content to merely keep pace with the S&P 500, I know a stock you'll probably find intriguing. Meet one monster stock that continues to crush the market.

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In the right market at the right time

Nebius Group NV's (NASDAQ: NBIS) stock has skyrocketed close to 240% year to date. This performance makes Nebius one of the five best-performing large-cap stocks of 2025.

The Netherlands-based company was once known as Yandex. Much of Yandex's operations were in Russia. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the company sold its Russian assets. It also changed its focus to one of the handful of businesses that didn't operate in Russia: an artificial intelligence (AI) cloud platform called Nebius AI. With this new core business and a desire to distance itself from its Russian past, the company changed its name to Nebius Group.

You could definitely say that Nebius is in the right market at the right time. The demand for AI is soaring. Nebius CEO and founder Arkady Volozh recently wrote to shareholders, "Outside of a handful of big tech companies, only a few newcomers have both the technological expertise and the multi-billion-dollar scale to play in this field. Nebius is one of them." He was right. His company is one of the top AI hyperscalers in the world.

Actually, it's more accurate to say that Nebius is in the right markets at the right time. While the AI cloud platform is the company's biggest business, Nebius has other operations. Avride develops autonomous driving technology used in self-driving vehicles and delivery robots. TripleTen is an online platform that helps people develop technology skills. Nebius also owns a majority stake in Toloka, which specializes in generative AI and large language model (LLM) training and development.

Friends in high places

Nebius has friends in high places. The best example of that is Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). The GPU maker is the world's largest company based on market cap. It's also an investor in Nebius, owning roughly 1.19 million shares of the AI cloud provider.

Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) is an important customer for Nebius. The e-commerce company uses AI extensively in its business. And it uses Nebius' cloud platform (along with Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Cloud) and Toloka's AI model training services.

Image source: Getty Images.

Avride works with Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) for robotic delivery of Uber Eats orders from restaurants in Austin, Dallas, and Jersey City. It has a similar operation at The Ohio State University in collaboration with Grubhub. Nebius' autonomous driving technology unit also teamed up with H-E-B, one of the largest grocery chains in Texas, to use robots to deliver groceries.

Can Nebius continue to soar?

Nebius is crushing the market in 2025, but can that momentum continue? I think so.

The surge in demand for AI infrastructure doesn't appear to be slowing. It will likely accelerate, in my view, as AI is more heavily integrated into business workflows. Advances in agentic AI could provide an especially strong tailwind for Nebius.

Granted, Nebius faces competitors with deep pockets. They include the "big three" cloud providers -- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services, Microsoft (NASDAQ: AMZN) Azure, and Google Cloud -- plus up-and-coming hyperscalers such as CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV). However, I think the demand for AI is outpacing supply so much that all of these companies will be winners.

Importantly, Nebius is scaling up to capitalize on its huge opportunity. Doing so requires more power, something that the company is addressing, with a goal to have 1 gigawatt of power in 2026.

I don't know if Nebius will deliver another 3x-plus return next year. However, I fully expect this monster stock to continue to soar.

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Keith Speights has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Cloudflare, Nvidia, Shopify, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Nebius Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.