Nvidia is in early-stage talks to acquire or deepen its investment in US start-up Reflection AI, a developer of open-weight AI models. The discussions could result in an 'acqui-hire'—a deal where Nvidia hires staff and licenses technology to avoid antitrust scrutiny—or a further equity investment. Reflection was last valued at $25bn in March and is seen as a strategic asset in the US-China AI race. Nvidia, already a major shareholder, has invested $800mn in the start-up and may provide more chips and computing power. A deal could be reached in the coming weeks, though talks may fall apart. Reflection recently unveiled a customisable AI product running on Nvidia chips, claiming parity with Chinese rival Z.ai’s GLM-5.2. The start-up is backed by Sequoia Capital and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr is a partner, and has partnered with the Pentagon and US allies.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, has been on an investment spree to bolster the AI economy. It already has an open-weight model family called Nemotron but lacks a frontier-scale model. In July, CEO Jensen Huang called for a domestic open-weight ecosystem to drive innovation. In September, Nvidia agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $13bn. The company has also invested tens of billions in AI labs including OpenAI and Nebius, increasing demand for its chips. Reflection’s founders, Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, previously worked on Google’s Gemini.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing