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Nvidia is in talks to acquire or deepen its investment in U.S. startup Reflection AI, a developer of open-weight models that President Donald Trump’s administration hopes will compete with cheap Chinese alternatives, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The talks are in their early stages and a deal could take several forms, including an “acquisition” in which Nvidia would hire staff and license the technology without the lengthy regulatory review that comes with a full acquisition, the sources added.
Nvidia, already one of Reflection’s main shareholders, could also choose to deepen its ties with the start-up through a new equity investment or an agreement to provide it with more chips and computing power.
A deal between the two companies could be reached in the coming weeks, according to several people with knowledge of the matter, while warning that talks could break down. Terms of the deal under discussion could not be established, but Reflection was last valued at $25 billion in a March funding round.
Reflection and Nvidia declined to comment.
Acquisitions have become increasingly popular among large technology companies seeking to avoid antitrust scrutiny of AI-related deals. Nvidia used a similar format with chip designer Groq in a $20 billion deal in December. The deal sparked a lawsuit this week from fired Groq employees.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, has embarked on an investment spree over the past two years in an effort to strengthen the AI economy and solidify its position at its heart. The company already has an open family of AI models known as Nemotron, but does not have its own frontier-scale model.
In recent months, the company has increasingly focused on fostering a market for open models, which users can customize and run on their own hardware. They can be much cheaper for businesses to operate than the more advanced versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.
In July, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang led the industry in calling for an open national “ecosystem,” which he said was essential to “creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country.” In September, the $5.5 trillion company agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a repository of millions of models and datasets, for $13 billion.
Nvidia has invested tens of billions of dollars in large AI labs, including OpenAI, neo-cloud companies such as Nebius, and a series of smaller groups. That in turn has created additional demand for its chips, which remain a crucial product for companies building or operating AI models.
Thinking is seen as an important strategic asset for the United States in its AI race against Chinese rivals such as DeepSeek. This week, it unveiled its first public, customizable AI product, running on Nvidia chips. Reflection claims the model is comparable to the GLM-5.2 from Z.ai, one of China’s main competitors.
The group’s founders, Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, previously worked on Google’s Gemini AI model.
Nvidia has already invested $800 million in Reflection, which is also backed by venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital, Disruptive and 1789 Capital, where Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr is a partner.
Reflection has partnered with the Pentagon and the Department of Energy and has agreements to develop AI models for U.S. allies such as South Korea.
Additional reporting by Stephen Morris
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