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Arkady Volozh

Yandex → two decades as CEO → Nebius → European GPU clusters and gigawatt-scale AI factories.

WHY THIS PERSON MATTERS

THE SHORT VERSION

Volozh spent the 1990s building Russian-language search technology at Arkadia and CompTek before the project became Yandex. He ran the company for more than two decades, stepped out of leadership in 2022, then returned at the head of Nebius and rebuilt the public-company shell around GPU clouds, hyperscaler contracts, and gigawatt-scale AI factories.

HOW THE HELL DID ARKADY VOLOZH GET HERE?

  1. 1990

    HE BUILDS SEARCH BEFORE THE RUSSIAN WEB EXISTS

    Volozh and colleagues at Arkadia were building information-retrieval software years before Yandex became a company, including search systems for patents, classifiers, and Russian-language text.

    RECEIPTS: Yandexfirst-party

  2. 1993

    THE SEARCH ENGINE GETS A NAME: YANDEX

    While Volozh and Ilya Segalovich were developing search technology at Arkadia, the project acquired the name Yandex. Arkadia later became part of CompTek, which incubated the search engine before the standalone Yandex company was registered.

    RECEIPTS: Yandexfirst-party

  3. 2000

    HE TAKES THE WHEEL AT YANDEX

    Nebius's board biography says Volozh moved from CompTek International to become Yandex CEO and served as group chief executive and executive director from 2000 through 2022.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-party

  4. 2022

    THE TWO-DECADE CEO RUN STOPS

    Volozh left the group's chief-executive and executive-director roles in 2022, ending a run that had begun in 2000.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-party

  5. Sep 25, 2024

    HE RETURNS WITH A BILLION-DOLLAR EUROPEAN AI BUILDOUT

    After resuming office in 2024 as founder and CEO of Nebius, Volozh announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in European AI infrastructure, including a new Paris GPU cluster.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-partyNebiusfirst-party

  6. Sep 8, 2025

    MICROSOFT SIGNS THE NEW AI CLOUD TO A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR DEAL

    Nebius announced a multi-year agreement to deliver dedicated AI infrastructure capacity to Microsoft from a new New Jersey data center.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-party

  7. Mar 3, 2026

    NEBIUS GETS A 1.2-GIGAWATT MISSOURI AI FACTORY

    Local approval cleared Nebius to proceed with an Independence, Missouri AI-factory campus with potential capacity of up to 1.2 GW.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-party

  8. Mar 16, 2026

    META BOOKS BILLIONS MORE OF NEBIUS CAPACITY

    Nebius signed a five-year agreement to provide Meta $12 billion of dedicated AI capacity, with additional compute purchases potentially taking the commitment higher.

    RECEIPTS: Nebiusfirst-party

PROFILE

EDUCATION
Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas · Applied mathematicsNebius

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