Nvidia is in talks to invest more money in the startup Reflection AI or acquire it outright. The Financial Times reported this, citing people with direct knowledge of the talks. The discussions are still at an early stage. A deal could be reached within a few weeks, but the talks could also fall apart.
The deal could take several forms. Nvidia could acquire Reflection outright, increase its stake in the company, or provide it with more chips and computing power. Another option under discussion is for Nvidia to hire the startup's employees and license its technology without taking control of the company. According to the Financial Times, such an arrangement would likely avoid lengthy scrutiny by antitrust regulators. Reflection declined to comment on the report, as did Nvidia.
Reflection AI and the Beam Model
Reflection AI was founded in 2024 by Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, who previously worked as researchers at Google DeepMind. The startup develops tools that automate software development, one of the fastest-growing applications of artificial intelligence.
Last Monday, the company unveiled its first open-weight model, named Beam. Open weights mean that the creators release the model's internal parameters, allowing developers to freely modify it or build their own applications on top of it. Beam is intended to compete with less expensive Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Kimi, particularly in programming and the autonomous completion of more complex tasks. According to Reflection, it performs as well as GLM-5.2 in demanding reasoning tests. GLM-5.2 is the flagship open model from the Chinese company Z.AI.
What Sparked Nvidia's Interest
Beam was trained on Nvidia GB300 systems that Reflection leases from Elon Musk's SpaceX. In July, SpaceX agreed to sell the startup an additional $1 billion worth of computing capacity. Reflection has also signed a similar billion-dollar agreement with cloud company Nebius. The startup has therefore run on Nvidia hardware from the outset, and its success is directly tied to demand for Nvidia's chips.
Politics also plays a role. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has long been a vocal supporter of open models, arguing that if American companies develop them, the United States will be less reliant on cheaper Chinese alternatives. The artificial intelligence action plan unveiled by President Donald Trump in July 2025 points in the same direction, calling for the US to have the best open models. Members of the Trump administration have already indicated that they would like to see Reflection become a competitor to DeepSeek.
A potential deal would fit into a series of major transactions Nvidia has recently completed. In September, it agreed to acquire the Hugging Face platform for $13 billion and signed a licensing deal worth approximately $20 billion with chip startup Groq.
The chipmaker had already invested a substantial amount of money in Reflection AI. In October 2025, it led the startup's $2 billion funding round and has invested a total of $800 million in the company, according to the Financial Times. In April, Laskin told CNBC that the company was seeking new capital at a pre-money valuation of $25 billion.
Sources: reuters.com and finance.yahoo.com
