Nvidia built its position at the hardware layer of AI, but it has never owned a leading developer of open-weight models. It is now trying to close that gap with talks instead of a build.
A US startup called Reflection AI, last valued at $25B, is the target. The Financial Times first reported the discussions, and its account lists several possible shapes for a deal: an outright purchase, a bigger stake, or terms that hand Nvidia access to the lab’s researchers and its technology.
Money has already changed hands. Nvidia put $800M into Reflection, ranking among the startup’s biggest backers. No price for an acquisition has surfaced, the talks are early, and neither company would comment.
Buying the team and licensing the tech, rather than the business itself, is one path under discussion. Deals structured that way have grown common as regulators scrutinize large technology acquisitions more closely.
Politics sits underneath it all. The Trump administration wants American developers shipping open-weight models that can hold their own against inexpensive Chinese ones, and Reflection fits that goal almost exactly.
