Synopsis
Amsterdam-based Nebius is acquiring Eigen AI for approximately $643 million. This strategic move aims to enhance Nebius' production-grade artificial intelligence capabilities and expand its United States operations. The deal will integrate Eigen AI's inference and optimization technology into Nebius' Token Factory platform. This acquisition is set to close in the coming weeks.Listen to this article in summarized format
Shares of the company jumped about 10% in early trading.
* The deal will bolster Nebius' Token Factory platform, a managed inference service designed to help companies deploy and customize open-source AI models in production
* This comes as inference, the process of running trained AI models in applications, emerges as the fastest-growing segment of the AI market, forecast to account for roughly two-thirds of total compute demand this year, according to Deloitte
* The deal, which is expected to close in the coming weeks, will be paid in cash and Nebius Class A shares, based on the company's 30-day weighted average share price
* Nebius said Eigen AI's inference and post-training optimization technology would be integrated directly into Token Factory
* The companies have already worked together on optimized versions of leading open-source models
* Nebius has been expanding rapidly by securing large, long-term AI infrastructure contracts from major technology companies, including Meta, which agreed in March to buy up to $27 billion worth of computing capacity from the firm over five years
* Eigen AI, founded by former MIT researchers, focuses on optimizing models from post-training through production inference, helping companies extract higher performance
