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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[Chongqing]

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

So my email account is fine, right?

 

[osooolemiiio]

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

/Confirms as a (currently) YaBrowser user.
Mail addresses, Disk accounts, and search work just fine and weren't going anywhere.

 

[Chongqing]

/Confirms as a (currently) YaBrowser user.
Mail addresses, Disk accounts, and search work just fine and weren't going anywhere.

I love Yandex.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

looking into it a little further this is how things went:
They split foreign assets from Russian ones. Put foreign into Yandex N.V. and Russian into МКАО ЯНДЕКС. Then sold foreign to Dutch. Here's a neat part - Starting from 31 of July, Яндекс starts being 100% domestic company in Russia. That means, less scrutiny from government. All executive board is Russian.

 

[Danann]

So on the one hand, they sold out themselves to the EU but on the other hand, they're becoming more Russian?

 

[CryptoHermit]

So on the one hand, they sold out themselves to the EU but on the other hand, they're becoming more Russian?

It's almost stereotypical Russian behavior as play here. I wonder if *siloviki* shenanigans caused this. https://web.archive.org/web/2024072...s/submission/proof/22-1-238-2-10-20210303.pdf

This essay has tackled the question of Russia as a ‘militocracy’ and the extent of its military/security structure’s influence in shaping policy. In doing so, it has presented two main arguments. The first of these posits that the Siloviki are ultimately reliant on Putin and his patronage and are not a united force pushing Russia to pursue aggressive non-democratic policies. Secondly, the Siloviki have been presented as a historical force that has always been deeply embedded in Russian civil service, with post-Soviet Russia being no exception, and that they are certainly not a case of an exceptional new Russian militocracy focused on attacking the West.

 

[Danann]

It's almost stereotypical Russian behavior as play here. I wonder if *siloviki* shenanigans caused this. https://web.archive.org/web/2024072...s/submission/proof/22-1-238-2-10-20210303.pdf

I believe that Yandex was ultimately more or less one of the companies that were pro-Ukraine and EU, as they didn't like the EU sanctions on them and urged to be more in-line in them especially after they sold off their News and Media divisions to VK due to the pro-Kremlin media they had on their whitelist.

 

[RaincoatWithAHat]

I'm yandex employee and this is bullshit.
We do have a few cargo cult people who look up to wokeness, though.

 

[osooolemiiio]

We do have a few cargo cult people who look up to wokeness, though.

Like Lena Klimova and a handful more of her ilk?

 

[Baraka Obama]

Is there a way to use ya.ru targeting english language content? Im ok with the ui being in russian.

 

[osooolemiiio]

Is there a way to use ya.ru targeting english language content? Im ok with the ui being in russian.

Set search result language to English in settings and it should work.

 

[WitchfyndeGeneral]

So far, Metager and Swisscows seems to be the reasonable alternative however, it’s not good for torrenting and piracy like Yandex. However, Freespoke I really haven’t used and I will see what Freespoke can provide. Typically, in a free market, someone else will try to make a free speech alternative to mimic what Yandex used to be, but the demand isn’t that high since people are more happy using only X/Twitter.