Former tech giant Yandex has reformed under a new identity as Nebius, an ambitious startup aiming to become a major player in European AI infrastructure. Led by Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, Nebius inherits over a decade of experience building large-scale compute infrastructure.
Yandex was once a multi-billion dollar tech powerhouse based in Russia, but sanctions caused the company to divest nearly all its assets. Volozh and around 1,000 engineers transitioned to Nebius, preserving their technical expertise. While Nebius has substantial resources from Yandex’s remains, Volozh acknowledges the challenge of “starting up” anew on a massive scale.
Nebius will focus on the fast-growing market for graphics processing units (GPUs) devoted to AI workloads. Major tech firms dominate this area through expansive data center networks. However, Nebius enters with key differentiators. Its workforce brings domain knowledge developing infrastructure globally. Crucially, one Yandex data center was built in Finland, providing an instant foothold in Europe.
Volozh aims to triple the Finnish facility’s capacity to nearly 100 megawatts. Additional European data centers are planned over coming years. Partnerships with Nvidia offer GPU access whileNebius develops an interconnected GPU system. Publicly listing will ease multi-billion dollar fundraising to realize these infrastructure ambitions.
As a market pioneer untethered from tech giants, Nebius offers investors direct exposure to the AI infrastructure sector. Volozh expects the “unsexiest thing in a very sexy market” will yield outsized returns due to surging AI adoption. With rocketing demand and decades of relevant experience, Nebius emerges from Yandex’s upheaval ready to power the next generation of technology breakthroughs across Europe.