Nvidia in Talks to Acquire Reflection AI or Increase Investment, FT Reports
Nvidia has already invested $800 million in Reflection AI, which unveiled its Beam open-weight model on October 5th. One potential outcome is an acqui-hire that could bypass a lengthy regulatory review.
October 12, 2026 - 8:28 am
Credit: Samuel Boivin via Shutterstock
Nvidia is in discussions to either purchase Reflection AI or increase its investment in the US open-weight model developer, according to the Financial Times (FT), citing individuals with direct knowledge of the matter. TNW has not independently verified this report.
The negotiations are in their early stages and could still fall through, per the FT. A potential agreement could be reached within weeks, the paper suggested. Arash Massoudi, George Hammond, Michael Acton, and George Steer authored the report.
Potential Outcomes
Several options are on the table:
- Acqui-hire: Nvidia would hire Reflection’s staff and license its technology rather than acquire the company outright. This approach could streamline the regulatory process.
- Increased Investment: Nvidia could supply the startup with additional chips or increase its stake in Reflection.
The Trump administration is keen on Reflection as a competitor to low-cost Chinese open models like DeepSeek, according to the FT.
Bloomberg reported separately that Nvidia is considering boosting its investment in Reflection or providing computing power to the startup. These discussions are also at a preliminary stage, with no agreed terms between the parties.
Reflection’s Background
Founded in 2024 by Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, both ex-Google DeepMind researchers, Reflection released its first model, Beam, on October 5th. Beam is an open-weight model designed for coding and agent tasks.
The startup has also secured compute deals with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and cloud provider Nebius.
Nvidia’s Recent Deals
In September, Nvidia agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion and struck a licensing deal with chip startup Groq, whose CEO and COO subsequently joined Nvidia.
The Justice Department is investigating the Groq deal, as reported by The New York Times in September. It is examining whether Nvidia structured the deal to evade antitrust scrutiny. An Nvidia spokesman told the Times that the Groq acquisition illustrated “the American system working as designed.”
By Ana Maria Constantin