Nebius takes on Microsoft and AWS with new open-model AI platform

AI cloud provider Nebius unveiled its latest platform, Token Factory, which aims to revolutionize the deployment and management of open-source AI models. Announced on Wednesday, the platform is designed to support the most prominent open-source models available, including DeepSeek, OpenAI's GPT-OSS, Meta's Llama, Nvidia's Nemotron, and Qwen. Token Factory enables enterprises to not only deploy but also optimize these models at scale, ensuring reliability and control that meets enterprise-level standards. Users can access the platform immediately, which currently supports over 60 open-source models, and they also have the option to host their own models. This new offering positions Nebius as a formidable competitor to industry giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Additionally, it faces competition from emerging startups like Fireworks and Baseten that are entering the same space. Nebius claims that Token Factory is engineered for optimal performance, boasting sub-second latency, autoscaling capabilities, and a remarkable 99.9% uptime, even when managing workloads that surpass hundreds of millions of requests per minute. The company's evolution follows its split from Yandex in 2024, establishing itself as a leading player in the neo-cloud sector with data centers located in the US, Europe, and Israel. While AI infrastructure providers like Nebius have the potential for wider profit margins by selling software services alongside cloud capabilities, CEO Roman Chernin emphasizes that the company is focused on attracting a broader customer base through a diverse range of products rather than merely chasing margin increases. "Simply having infrastructure is far from enough. We want to grow into a significant enterprise, but we do not aspire to be just a utility company," Chernin stated in a recent interview. He noted the industry’s shift from closed ecosystems to a more varied portfolio of models, asserting that the platform enables clients to transition seamlessly from their initial setups to what they require at scale.