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The Architect of Russia’s Google Is Back

Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh fought off sanctions and kicked anti-war squatters out of his Amsterdam townhouse. Now he is ready to reveal his new AI company in the Netherlands. But can Europe forget his past?

Volozh and his team have spent the past two years in complex negotiations with the Kremlin, selling off parts of the business still based in Russia, including the search engine. The main part of Nebius’ business will be its cloud division and Volozh wants to offer AI developers access to big tech-style infrastructure without the conflicting interest of the US giants that are building their own models on the side. The company was lambasted by Putin himself the same year for being under Western influence in its early days, and the late opposition activist Alexei Navalny criticized its news aggregator service (since sold) for burying articles about his anti-government activities.

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