Business 'Russia’s Google’ exits the country — Yandex plans to triple its Nvidia GPU deployments - Same company, same leaders, different part of the world

(Image credit: WikiFido, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)

The Russian-founded tech giant Yandex has left Russia after finalizing one of the country’s most significant foreign corporate exits since the Russo-Ukraine war started. Reuters reports that Russian investors acquired the last of Yandex’s Russian assets, and the company has rebranded itself as the Dutch-based Nebius Group. The company is now working to triple its data center deployments of Nvidia chips.

The deal took around two years to complete and culminated in Russian investors paying $5.4 billion for the remaining 28% of Yandex NV (YNV) shares, which was still a bargain for the buyers. The Russian government demanded a discount of at least 50% on foreign asset sales.

The company claims its deployment in Finland is the most powerful commercially available supercomputer on the continent, but it plans to triple its footprint with new Nvidia GPUs to compete with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in the AI sphere.

"It's in Nvidia's interest to diversify their client base; they're interested in growing guys like us," Volozh told the Financial Times. "We've had a working relationship with them for years. They know and trust us," said the Yandex founder.

In 2022, the EU imposed restrictions on Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh over his alleged complicity in the Ukrainian invasion. Volozh later condemned the conflict, calling it barbaric, and the EU lifted the ban. It paved the way for Volozh to become CEO of Yandex again, now Nebius Group, in its new incarnation. Rebuilding the company in Amsterdam, Volozh will lead a team of 1,300 employees, primarily former Yandex staff.

The Yandex brand will be phased out by July 31. YNV chairman John Boynton expressed gratitude to the company’s employees, especially negotiations leader Vadim Marchuk. “All connections with Russia have now been severed,” he told Reuters.

Nebius Group plans to operate in four AI-centric businesses: cloud computing, data labeling, autonomous driving, and education technology. Yandex once dominated these businesses in Russia, so the company knows them well. Nebius has already begun collaborating to develop its EU cloud computing platform.

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[Autistic Integrity]

I hope they exit using so many captchas makes search unusable

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

@Yandex Captcha Solver You might need to do a small rebrand soon

 

[Yandex Captcha Solver]

@Yandex Captcha Solver You might need to do a small rebrand soon

It's so Joever

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Russia’s main software export was literally cucked by the EU.

That’s a shame. I liked Yandex.

 

[Spasticus Autisticus]

Does this mean their image search is going to get neutered? It's a great place to find spicy memes that are blocked by everything else.

 

[Soggy Floppa]

rip the last good internet search. I use it to search for stuff that I want to pirate and the image search is the only one that actually works

 

[Troonos]

Sad. Yandex was the last search engine to feel like the 90s Wild West internet.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

rip the last good internet search. I use it to search for stuff that I want to pirate and the image search is the only one that actually works

This is the rise of the Kiwibrowser, baby!

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Well that sucks. They were incredibly usable from their email to their image search to their translator. I bet that won't be the case very soon.

 

[Google.com]

how the fuck am i supposed to find moviesfunwatchfree234Y.assaids.ru now

 

[TrinityReformed]

Reuters reports that Russian investors acquired the last of Yandex’s Russian assets, and the company has rebranded itself as the Dutch-based Nebius Group.

Does that mean that the Russian's still have their version of Yandex?

 

[Retink Retunk]

Yandex hasn't been functional in the US lately, but I was on a VPN each time I tried.

 

[Audit]

What's even the point of going to Yandex if it isn't Russian? The only point of using it instead of any other search site was BECAUSE it wasn't controlled by globohomo. This is going to go over as well as Yahoo's purchase of Tumblr. I swear companies are obsessed with abandoning their existing users to pursue this imagined "wider audience" that never seems to appear.

Oh well, at least it looks like the "private" Russian investors who definitely aren't being controlled by the Kremlin will keep some semblance of the old site alive.

So, if he's rebuilding the company in the most homosexual country on earth, does that mean that most of Yandex's original Russian software engineers aren't following him? It's rather odd wording if most of the 1300 employees are existing workers.

 

[Cherry Eyed Hamster]

Yandex’s image search was the crème de la crème of the internet browser world. I completely stopped pulling images from every other search engine after discovering it. It reminded me of the browser’s of the 2000’s and I loved it for that.

I hope they don’t reduce its functionality but I can’t say I’m optimistic. This week has been nothing but breaking news and yet this one has left me feeling the most disappointed.

 

[PeachDream]

rip the last good internet search. I use it to search for stuff that I want to pirate and the image search is the only one that actually works

Literally the only reverse image search that could still kinda be used for NSFW content or looking up people.

 

[STARS158]

and the company has rebranded itself as the Dutch-based Nebius Group

well so much for that

 

[Chongqing]

But what about my email account?

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Another case of "scientist raped journalist".

In Russia Yandex stays. They just have rebranded foreign branches into that. Yandex stays in Russia as Ya.ru or Я

 

[Overly Serious]

https://kagi.com/rip the last good internet search. I use it to search for stuff that I want to pirate and the image search is the only one that actually works

No, there is another.

Kagi is Serbian and subscription based. Yes - a product you are actually expected to pay for with money rather than your information and tracking.

It's good, though.