July 14 (Reuters) - AI startup Reflection said on Tuesday it

has signed a more than $1 billion deal to secure computing

capacity from Nebius ( NBIS ), including access to Nvidia's

latest chips.

The move builds on Reflection's June agreement with SpaceX

for computing capacity, a deal that media reports said would see

the startup pay about $150 million a month through 2029.

AI startups are racing to lock in the computing power needed

to train and run their models as demand growth from businesses

adopting the technology outpaces new data-center supply.

Reflection, launched by two former Google DeepMind

researchers, develops open-source models that serve as an

alternative to the offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Open-source models, typically easier to customize and

cheaper to run than closed-weight rivals, have drawn growing

interest as rising AI bills push businesses to cut costs. Last

month's U.S. curbs on Anthropic's advanced models also exposed

the risks of relying on providers that can be cut off overnight.

"The need for open models is clear, and this additional

compute capacity will allow Reflection to continue to build and

train frontier AI models at scale," said Reflection's chief

technology officer and co-founder, Ioannis Antonoglou.