Reflection AI, a U.S. startup developing open-weight AI models, has agreed a $1 billion compute contract with European AI infrastructure provider Nebius. Under the deal, Nebius will give Reflection access to Nvidia’s latest chips.
Context and recent moves
The agreement follows a similar arrangement Reflection signed weeks earlier to access computing resources from SpaceX. Such partnerships have become common as AI companies race to secure the large-scale compute needed to train and deploy models.
Reflection is one of several open-weight model developers attracting attention recently, alongside increasingly capable Chinese alternatives. The debate over the value of top-tier closed-source models has intensified amid concerns about data retention and potential government intervention.
Political and industry backdrop
According to the reporting, last month the Trump administration pressured Anthropic and OpenAI to limit their most powerful new models, raising concerns that access to AI models could be curtailed abruptly. That uncertainty, together with the release of more capable open models from China, has increased mainstream interest in open-source AI.
Companies and financing
Reflection is currently valued at $8 billion. The company was founded in 2024 by two former Google DeepMind researchers. To date it has raised close to $2.6 billion from investors including Nvidia, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Nebius, formerly the international arm of Yandex, has expanded its infrastructure business following a $2 billion investment from Nvidia. After that investment, Nebius signed a five-year infrastructure deal with Meta worth up to $27 billion. Last year Nebius also concluded a multi-year agreement with Microsoft valued at up to $19.4 billion.
Implications
The $1 billion compute deal between Reflection and Nebius underscores the intensifying competition for compute in the AI industry, particularly for developers of open-weight models. For Reflection, increased access to Nvidia’s latest chips could accelerate training and deployment capabilities, while regulatory and data-retention concerns continue to shape access and commercial strategies.
TechCrunch has contacted Reflection and Nebius for further comment.
