According to sources familiar with the matter, NVIDIA (NVDA.US) is in negotiations to deepen its investment in or potentially acquire the open-source startup Reflection AI.

The talks are still at an early stage and the deal could take various forms, including a so-called "acqui-hire" arrangement in which NVIDIA hires employees and licenses the technology rather than pursuing a full acquisition, which could help it avoid a lengthy regulatory review, the report said.

An agreement could be reached within the coming weeks, according to the report, which cited multiple people familiar with the discussions, though the talks could still fall apart.

NVIDIA is already a significant financial backer and strategic investor in Reflection AI, having previously invested $800 million in the startup.

Reflection was founded in 2024 by former DeepMind researchers Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou, and the company develops tools that automate software development — a rapidly growing use case in the AI sector.

Reflection CEO Laskin told media in April of this year that the NVIDIA-backed startup is raising new funding at a pre-money valuation of $25 billion.

The company on Monday released its first open-weight model, Beam, aiming to compete with lower-cost Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Kimi on coding and agentic tasks.