Nebius Explores $150 Million Israeli Acquisition Amid Expansion

Cloud infrastructure giant Nebius is reportedly exploring the acquisition of an Israeli company for approximately $100 million to $150 million, as it seeks to expand its development center in Israel. Nebius, led by Arkady Volozh, has become a major player in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, with a market capitalization around $66 billion on Nasdaq. The company's growth strategy involves building its own high-performance hardware infrastructure and acquiring complementary software and technology firms.

Nebius has already made significant moves in Israel, notably acquiring the startup Tavily for an initial $275 million, potentially reaching $400 million. Tavily developed a real-time dynamic search and information layer for AI agents, and its technology is intended to be integrated into Nebius's cloud platform to enable advanced autonomous agents.

Previously, Nebius engaged in advanced acquisition talks with AI21 Labs, another Israeli AI company, for an estimated $2 billion. While a full acquisition did not materialize, the discussions evolved into a technological partnership. AI21 Labs subsequently refocused its strategy, reducing its workforce and concentrating on enterprise AI agents and orchestration systems like Maestro, while Nebius now utilizes AI21's technology within its cloud offerings.

Further solidifying its presence, Nebius was selected in a government tender to establish and operate an advanced AI data center in Modi'in. This facility will utilize cutting-edge hardware, including Nvidia's Blackwell architecture and thousands of GPU processors, to train AI models and develop artificial intelligence.