Nebius Group N.V. shares rose more than 20% on Wednesday after the AI infrastructure company said the expected payback period on its latest deals had shortened to one year and 10 months, below its earlier two-to-three-year range. The update arrived days after Michael Burry disclosed short positions in Nebius and Oracle Corp., arguing that AI infrastructure bets resemble "a bit like shooting fish in a barrel" because billions are being committed to chips and data centers without certainty over eventual returns. Nebius framed the latest quarter as a marked improvement in unit economics. CEO Arkady Volozh said the company could already sell all of its 2027 capacity on those terms but is intentionally reserving some supply. Revenue increased 454% to $582.3 million, while adjusted EBITDA improved to $236.2 million from a $21 million loss a year earlier. The company said second-quarter deals generated more than $20 million in annual contract value per megawatt, compared with a roughly $12 million base for 2026, and about 70% of those deals included prepayments covering 50% to 60% of related capex (capital expenditure). The results undercut part of Burry's concern that massive AI buildouts may not earn back their costs quickly enough, although Nebius is still expanding aggressively and raised its year-end contracted-power target to 5 gigawatts. Broader market sentiment also remains relatively resilient: Polymarket, a prediction market, assigned roughly a 15% chance of an AI-industry downturn by the end of 2026, with nearly $3 million wagered on that outcome.