Nebius secures $1bn AI computing deal with Reflection Labs

Nebius, the Dutch technology group formerly known as Yandex NV and controlled by Arkady Volozh, has agreed to sell computing capacity worth in excess of $1 billion to Reflection AI, a developer of artificial intelligence models, according to a joint statement from the two companies cited by Bloomberg. The contract, which runs until 2029, provides Reflection with access to Nvidia GB300 chips, the latest generation of graphics processing units that have become the gold standard for training large-scale AI systems. The agreement represents the latest in a series of blockbuster deals for Nebius, which has emerged as a significant player in the AI infrastructure space since Volozh orchestrated the sale of the Russian business of Yandex to a group of domestic investors for $5.2 billion in 2024, retaining the overseas assets and rebranding the remaining entity under its current name.

Having relinquished his Russian citizenship earlier this year, according to Bloomberg reports in February, Volozh has repositioned his company around the construction of data centres purpose-built for artificial intelligence workloads, a strategy that has yielded remarkable results. Since the autumn of 2025, Nebius has signed a $17.4 billion contract with Microsoft, a separate agreement with Meta worth as much as $27 billion, and secured $2 billion in investment from Nvidia itself, the semiconductor manufacturer whose chips underpin much of the company's infrastructure. The group's market capitalisation now exceeds $53.4 billion, a valuation that reflects the surging demand for high-performance computing capacity as the AI industry continues its rapid expansion.

Reflection AI, the buyer of the latest capacity deal, was founded by two former researchers from Google's DeepMind unit and has yet to release a commercially significant product, though its ambitions are evidently substantial. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, the startup was in negotiations as early as this spring to raise $2.5 billion at a valuation of $25 billion, with Nvidia counted among its existing investors. The company's strategy of securing long-term access to cutting-edge chip capacity appears to be gathering pace, as this marks the second major procurement deal in the space of a month. In June, Reflection signed an agreement with Elon Musk's SpaceX for access to chips of the same model, with payments reported to be in the region of $150 million per month, also continuing through to 2029.

The twin agreements with Nebius and SpaceX suggest that Reflection AI is positioning itself for a significant product launch, though the company has remained tight-lipped about its specific plans. For Nebius, meanwhile, the deal reinforces its status as a critical supplier of AI infrastructure to some of the most ambitious players in the field, a position that Volozh has built with remarkable speed since divesting his Russian interests. The contrast between the company's modest origins as the international arm of a Russian internet giant and its current standing as a $50 billion-plus technology group with contracts totalling tens of billions of dollars from the world's largest technology companies underscores the extraordinary demand for AI computing capacity that continues to reshape the industry's landscape.