Latest news with #Volozh
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Russian billionaire and Putin critic launches AI data centres in the UK
A Russian billionaire and critic of Vladimir Putin is preparing to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in artificial intelligence (AI) data centres in the UK. Nebius, a technology company headquartered in the Netherlands, will invest £200m to establish an 'AI factory' in Britain, deploying 4,000 graphics-processing chips designed to power the latest generation of machine-learning technology. The $12bn (£9bn) business is assessing potential data centre sites in the South East. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, a company known as 'Russia's Google'. Arkady Volozh, a Russian entrepreneur worth a reported $2bn, founded Yandex in 1997 as a Russian rival to the US search engine. The business later listed in New York and in 2021 was valued at more than $30bn. However, its shares were suspended in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Mr Volozh was sanctioned by the European Union. Over the years Yandex faced growing pressure from the Kremlin to censor online news and search results, and the company was accused by Brussels of helping to spread Kremlin propaganda. In 2023, Mr Volozh labelled Putin's invasion 'barbaric' and said he was 'horrified' by the war. He said: 'I am categorically against it. Although I moved to Israel in 2014, I have to take my share of responsibility for the country's actions. 'There were reasons to stay silent during this long process. While there will anyway be questions about the timing of my statement today, there should be no questions about its essence. I am against the war.' The European Union removed its sanctions of Mr Volozh last year. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, which spun off its Russian search division in a $5bn deal to Russian investors. Nebius, which is listed in the US, is made up of the remaining European, US and Israeli assets, including several data centres powered by Nvidia microchips and its self-driving car technology. Mr Volozh, Nebius's chief executive, said: 'The UK is where AI is being built, tested, and deployed at scale across industries from fintech to life sciences. Being here puts us closer to the start-ups, researchers, and enterprise leaders shaping what's next.' Nebius's UK investment comes after Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced plans to spend more than £1bn to boost the UK's computing power in a speech at London Tech Week alongside Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief executive. On Monday, the Government announced a series of AI investments ahead of this week's Treasury spending review. These included £1bn for an AI research resource, made up of powerful AI data centres and supercomputers, as well as £187m to boost the technological skills of the UK workforce. On Tuesday, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, also announced plans for a new Turing AI fellowship in a speech at London Tech Week. Backed by £25m, the programme will seek five AI experts who will be offered a substantial package to relocate to the UK and hire a team to conduct AI research. Mr Kyle said: 'We will harness the vast potential of our trillion-pound tech sector to help remake our country for the better.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Russian billionaire and Putin critic launches AI data centres in the UK
A Russian billionaire and critic of Vladimir Putin is preparing to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in artificial intelligence (AI) data centres in the UK. Nebius, a technology company headquartered in the Netherlands, will invest £200m to establish an 'AI factory' in Britain, deploying 4,000 graphics-processing chips designed to power the latest generation of machine-learning technology. The $12bn (£9bn) business is assessing potential data centre sites in the South East. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, a company known as 'Russia's Google'. Arkady Volozh, a Russian entrepreneur worth a reported $2bn, founded Yandex in 1997 as a Russian rival to the US search engine. The business later listed in New York and in 2021 was valued at more than $30bn. However, its shares were suspended in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Mr Volozh was sanctioned by the European Union. Over the years Yandex faced growing pressure from the Kremlin to censor online news and search results, and the company was accused by Brussels of helping to spread Kremlin propaganda. In 2023, Mr Volozh labelled Putin's invasion 'barbaric' and said he was 'horrified' by the war. He said: 'I am categorically against it. Although I moved to Israel in 2014, I have to take my share of responsibility for the country's actions. 'There were reasons to stay silent during this long process. While there will anyway be questions about the timing of my statement today, there should be no questions about its essence. I am against the war.' The European Union removed its sanctions of Mr Volozh last year. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, which spun off its Russian search division in a $5bn deal to Russian investors. Nebius, which is listed in the US, is made up of the remaining European, US and Israeli assets, including several data centres powered by Nvidia microchips and its self-driving car technology. Mr Volozh, Nebius's chief executive, said: 'The UK is where AI is being built, tested, and deployed at scale across industries from fintech to life sciences. Being here puts us closer to the start-ups, researchers, and enterprise leaders shaping what's next.' Nebius's UK investment comes after Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced plans to spend more than £1bn to boost the UK's computing power in a speech at London Tech Week alongside Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief executive. On Monday, the Government announced a series of AI investments ahead of this week's Treasury spending review. These included £1bn for an AI research resource, made up of powerful AI data centres and supercomputers, as well as £187m to boost the technological skills of the UK workforce. On Tuesday, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, also announced plans for a new Turing AI fellowship in a speech at London Tech Week. Backed by £25m, the programme will seek five AI experts who will be offered a substantial package to relocate to the UK and hire a team to conduct AI research. Mr Kyle said: 'We will harness the vast potential of our trillion-pound tech sector to help remake our country for the better.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Russian billionaire and Putin critic launches AI data centres in the UK
A Russian billionaire and critic of Vladimir Putin is preparing to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in artificial intelligence (AI) data centres in the UK. Nebius, a technology company headquartered in the Netherlands, will invest £200m to establish an 'AI factory' in Britain, deploying 4,000 graphics-processing chips designed to power the latest generation of machine-learning technology. The $12bn (£9bn) business is assessing potential data centre sites in the South East. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, a company known as 'Russia's Google'. Arkady Volozh, a Russian entrepreneur worth a reported $2bn, founded Yandex in 1997 as a Russian rival to the US search engine. The business later listed in New York and in 2021 was valued at more than $30bn. However, its shares were suspended in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Mr Volozh was sanctioned by the European Union. Over the years Yandex faced growing pressure from the Kremlin to censor online news and search results, and the company was accused by Brussels of helping to spread Kremlin propaganda. In 2023, Mr Volozh labelled Vladimir Putin's invasion 'barbaric' and said he was 'horrified' by the war. He said: 'I am categorically against it. Although I moved to Israel in 2014, I have to take my share of responsibility for the country's actions. 'There were reasons to stay silent during this long process. While there will anyway be questions about the timing of my statement today, there should be no questions about its essence. I am against the war.' The European Union removed its sanctions of Mr Volozh last year. Nebius was formed as part of a carve-up of Yandex, which spun off its Russian search division in a $5bn deal to Russian investors. Nebius, which is listed in the US, is made up of the remaining European, US and Israeli assets, including several data centres powered by Nvidia microchips and its self-driving car technology. Mr Volozh, Nebius's chief executive, said: 'The UK is where AI is being built, tested, and deployed at scale across industries from fintech to life sciences. Being here puts us closer to the start-ups, researchers, and enterprise leaders shaping what's next.' Nebius's UK investment comes after Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced plans to spend more than £1bn to boost the UK's computing power in a speech at London Tech Week alongside Jensen Huang, the Nvidia chief executive. On Monday, the Government announced a series of AI investments ahead of this week's Treasury spending review. These included £1bn for an AI research resource, made up of powerful AI data centres and supercomputers, as well as £187m to boost the technological skills of the UK workforce. On Tuesday, Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, also announced plans for a new Turing AI fellowship in a speech at London Tech Week. Backed by £25m, the programme will seek five AI experts who will be offered a substantial package to relocate to the UK and hire a team to conduct AI research. Mr Kyle said: 'We will harness the vast potential of our trillion-pound tech sector to help remake our country for the better.' Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nebius Group (NBIS) Posts Q1 2025 Results Highlighting Growth and Regional Expansion
Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) reported results for the fiscal first quarter of 2025 on Tuesday and logged a 385% year-over-year increase in revenue which reached $55.3 million. This was primarily driven by an explosive growth in its core AI infrastructure business. At the end of Q1 2025, the annualized run-rate revenue (ARR) for its core infrastructure business reached $249 million, reflecting a 684% increase compared to the previous year. Arkady Volozh, Founder and CEO of Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS), noted that the company is witnessing continued growth in Q2, reflected by April 2025 ARR of $310 million. However, regardless of the growth, the Adjusted EBITDA was negative, with a loss of $62.6 million compared to a loss of $70.9 million a year ago. Volozh, in his shareholder letter for Q1 2025, highlighted that the company is on track to achieve $750 million to $1 billion in ARR by the end of the year, and he expects the EBITDA to turn positive in the second half of 2025. In addition, Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) has been expanding its global footprint to drive growth. Volozh noted that in just three quarters, the company has expanded from a single location in Finland to five locations across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. Previously, on May 19, DA Davidson analyst Alexander Platt raised his price target on the stock from $35 to $45, while maintaining a Buy rating. Platt noted the company's regional expansion strategy to be one of the factors behind his rating upgrade. While we acknowledge the potential of NBIS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NBIS and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the . READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Overlooked and Undervalued: 1 AI Stock Worth Considering
Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) may be the biggest technology company you didn't even realize you already knew. The artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure company has only been public in that name since last October. But it was a major global player in internet search before that. A restructuring that came after Russian search engine company Yandex was forced to break up may now be giving investors an early investment opportunity. The Russian invasion of Ukraine led to a trading halt on Yandex shares. The company subsequently sold off all Russian assets to a Russian group. The restructured company resumed trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange last October as Nebius Group. Nebius founder and CEO Arkady Volozh resigned from all his positions at Yandex at that time. Volozh has spearheaded the company's focus on its core AI infrastructure business. It also holds three other adjacent, growing segments. Those are Toloka, a data partner for AI development including training and evaluation; an educational technology business; and autonomous driving and delivery robot maker Avride. Each of these segments supports Nebius Group's overall revenue model by utilizing technology solutions to grow a diverse pool of clients and markets. And each is also growing quickly. Avride has a new partnership with Grubhub to deploy robot delivery on U.S. college campuses. As of January, it had almost 100 robots already operating on U.S. college campuses starting with Ohio State University. Avride also has pilot services operating with Uber Technologies' delivery platform, Uber Eats. The company has made big progress with recent expansions. That includes setting up a new graphics processing unit (GPU) cluster in the U.S. and increasing capacity in Europe in the fourth quarter. It also launched a new AI-focused cloud software platform and an AI inference tool called AI Studio. AI Studio enhances AI capabilities by simplifying and optimizing the deployment of AI models. It allows developers to quickly create and test AI applications. Nebius also spent recent months building out its sales group to enhance customer growth. Increasing client count and diversifying its customer base have given the company more confidence to guide investors for impressive upcoming revenue growth. Volozh said that contracts already in place mean the current quarter should see revenue of at least $55 million. That would represent more than 45% sequential growth over the last quarter. He added that the company also has new potential deals already in the works. That additional business will utilize its added data center capacity as well as new Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Blackwell GPUs coming online later this year. The company sees quarterly revenue soaring to an annualized run rate (ARR) of between $750 million and $1 billion by the fourth quarter of this year. On the company's recent quarterly conference call, Volozh said: "So we feel very good that we are well on track to hit the ARR guidance for the end of '25. And actually, in reality, we believe that the scale opportunity could be even much, much bigger." That's a bold statement that implies fourth-quarter revenue alone could hit or exceed $250 million. The Nebius cloud platform has plenty of competition from major global tech players including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Alibaba. Those major competitors are one obvious risk for Nebius to accomplish its growth targets. Nebius is in a strong position after its separation from Yandex, though. It was sitting on a cash pile of $2.45 billion as of Dec. 31, 2024, along with negligible debt. Its relationship with AI powerhouse Nvidia is more than a simple supplier-and-customer connection, too. Nvidia was a participant in a $700 million private funding round in December. It also disclosed that it owns more than 1 million shares of Nebius stock in its most recently released 13F filing. The stock's valuation has also recently improved. Shares surged higher earlier this year, but have given up those gains recently. If management hits even the low end of its estimated annualized revenue run rate in the fourth quarter, its forward enterprise-value-to-revenue multiple would be below 5 for next year. Considering management's confidence surrounding its growing market and business segments, that's a cheap valuation. Shares may not stay inexpensive, though, if investors begin to take notice of this overlooked AI company. Before you buy stock in Nebius Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nebius Group wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $718,876!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 874% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 170% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of March 3, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Howard Smith has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nebius Group, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nebius Group, Nvidia, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Overlooked and Undervalued: 1 AI Stock Worth Considering was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
