Sept 8 (Reuters) - Nebius Group NBIS.O said on Monday it will provide Microsoft MSFT.O with GPU infrastructure capacity, in a deal worth $17.4 billion, over a five-year term, sending its shares soaring over 40% after the bell.

The deal underscores the surging demand for high-performance AI compute, as companies invest heavily to bolster their AI infrastructure.

Microsoft may also acquire additional services capacity under the deal, bringing the total contract value to about $19.4 billion.

Nebius' core business involves providing Nvidia NVDA.O graphic processing units and AI cloud as services. Nebius offers AI developers the computing, storage, managed services and tools they need to build, tune and run their AI models, with the help of its cloud software architecture and in-house designed hardware.

Nebius will provide Microsoft access to dedicated GPU infrastructure capacity from its new data center in Vineland, New Jersey, starting later this year.

"The economics of the deal are attractive in their own right, but, significantly, the deal will also help us to accelerate the growth of our AI cloud business even further in 2026 and beyond," Nebius CEO Arkady Volozh said.

Microsoft is the largest customer of CoreWeave CRWV.O — one of Nebius' competitors — which earlier this year denied media reports that said it had seen contract cancellations from the hyperscaler.

Amsterdam-based Nebius Group emerged from a deal to split the assets of Russian tech giant Yandex.