AI infrastructure continues to drive eye-popping numbers: Right now, the headliner is Microsoft’s deal for GPUs from Nebius (which was spun out of Russian internet company Yandex two years ago). That deal is worth at least $17.4 billion through 2031, and as much as $19.4 billion if Microsoft opts for additional capacity. Nebius also promptly announced a new capital influx of $3 billion to fuel its growth. Throw in another billion-dollar investment from Volkswagen for production transformation and applying “AI everywhere.” Small wonder, then, that in the U.S., the government is moving as quickly as possible with its plan to offer federal sites for data center development, with an RFP coming out of the Department of Energy to locate data centers at Idaho National Laboratory. And for even more big numbers, there’s Oracle’s AI-and-cloud-fueled earnings that wowed the market, and expectations that the company will be sitting pretty with $114 billion in cloud revenue by 2029. Let’s look at the rundown, below. 👇
Kelly Hill
Executive Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top 3
Microsoft’s big deal with Nebius: Nebius signed a five-year deal worth up to $19.4 billion with Microsoft to provide AI infrastructure, a contract set to accelerate Nebius’s cloud expansion in 2026.
VW puts €1B AI in gear: Volkswagen will invest €1B in AI by 2030 to transform vehicle production, targeting €4bn savings, 25% faster innovation cycles, digital sovereignty in Europe, and “AI everywhere” across its industrial value chain.
DOE data center bids: The U.S. Energy Department is seeking private-sector proposals for AI data centers with integrated power projects at Idaho National Laboratory, opening 44,000 acres for long-term development.
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Nebius raises billions: Nebius Group plans to raise $3 billion — via $2 billion in convertible notes and $1 billion in Class A shares — following its nearly $20 billion AI infrastructure deal with Microsoft.
Oracle’s AI surge: Oracle stunned investors with its Q1 results, reporting $455 billion in contracted revenue fueled by AI demand and projecting $114 billion in cloud revenue by 2029. Shares surged 40%.
UAE gives away AI: The UAE-backed Institute of Foundation Models released its first open-source AI, K2 Think, to compete with U.S. and Chinese systems, signaling the Emirates’ rising influence in global AI competition.
DARPA taps Google AI: Google Quantum AI will join DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which evaluates quantum approaches to see if they can achieve utility-scale, fault-tolerant computing.
Glug, glug, glug: AI data centers consume water directly for cooling and indirectly through electricity generation — often 80% of total use — making reductions dependent on both facility operations and power grids.
Monetizing AI: Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian said AI has already generated billions, with a $106 billion backlog growing faster than revenue and sales through customers’ AI consumption, through subscriptions, and through upselling.
EcoDataCenter expands: EcoDataCenter secured EUR 600 million in debt financing from Deutsche Bank to expand AI-focused data centers in Falun and Borlänge, bringing total funding raised since 2023 to nearly EUR 1.8 billion.
EV batteries for DCs: At a pilot site in Silicon Valley, Nissan will use EV batteries and Fermata’s bidirectional chargers to feed energy back to the grid and support data centers during peak demand.
The case for SLMs: Small language models (SLMs) deliver efficient and privacy-friendly AI for fine-tuning domain-specific enterprise workloads at the edge, writes Harvard Business Review.
Architectural AI: AI in architectural design education means a loss of control but rapid evolution. “Some of these things are very useful, but they’re not 100% reliable,” says the deputy dean of the Yale School of Architecture.
