Yandex’s International Arm to Focus on AI Following Russian Business Sale

Yandex’s international division will develop a cloud platform for AI after separating from its Russian business in a $5.4 billion deal. This was announced by Yandex co-founder and former CEO Arkady Volozh to Reuters.

According to media reports, Yandex’s Dutch parent company, Yandex NV (YNV), sold its Russian assets for $2.8 billion and 162.5 million of its own Class A shares as part of the second phase of the deal.

This agreement resolved the issue of foreign ownership of Yandex and freed YNV—now renamed Nebius Group—from Russian influence.

The new firm, headquartered in Amsterdam, is led by Volozh. He noted that the company aims to become a leading European provider of infrastructure for AI developers worldwide.

The Yandex co-founder added that Nebius specializes in “the ability to eliminate fundamental bottlenecks in artificial intelligence.” He describes the firm’s business model as “T2T,” or “technology for technologists.”

The company owns a data center in Finland and is developing its own hardware. Over the next year, it plans to triple the data center’s capacity.

“Infrastructure is a very capital-intensive game. We are looking at billions of dollars in investments, some of which will be financed from personal funds, some from external sources (debt or equity),” said Volozh.

Reuters noted that Nebius collaborates with Nvidia and has access to its graphics processors. The former Yandex CEO mentioned that trading of the company’s shares on Nasdaq is expected to resume in September.

In 2022, the firm planned the sale of its Russian business.

Previously, the company planned to launch driverless taxis in Moscow.