It has been a wild year for the NEXTDC Ltd (ASX: NXT) share price.

After trading as high as $16.78 over the past 12 months, the data centre operator saw its shares crash to just $5.07 in October.

Then, last Thursday, they surged more than 50% in a single session before settling around $10.39 on Monday.

So, what on Earth is going on? Let’s take a closer look.

How did things get so bad?

For much of 2026, NEXTDC appeared to be in an excellent position to benefit from growing demand for data centres.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing are driving enormous investment in digital infrastructure, and NEXTDC has been securing contracts to support that demand.

Its FY26…