Reflection inks $1B compute deal with Nebius
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- Reflection AI signed a $1 billion compute deal with Nebius for access to Nvidia's latest chips, coming weeks after the startup struck a similar arrangement with SpaceX for computing resources.
- Nebius, formerly the international arm of Russian tech giant Yandex, recently signed a five-year infrastructure deal with Meta worth up to $27 billion and a multi-year deal with Microsoft worth up to $19.4 billion last year.
- Reflection, valued at $8 billion and founded in 2024 by two former Google DeepMind researchers, has raised close to $2.6 billion from backers including Nvidia, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
- The deal highlights surging interest in open-weight AI models amid debate over closed-source AI value, driven by data retention concerns, government intervention — the Trump administration recently pressured Anthropic and OpenAI to restrict their most powerful models — and increasingly capable open models from China.
Why it matters: Reflection's $1B compute lock-in with Nebius — a former Yandex arm now writing infrastructure deals with both Meta ($27B) and Microsoft ($19.4B) — secures Nvidia's latest chips for an $8B startup as the open-weight AI race accelerates against closed-source leaders under government pressure.
