The Astra Group, the creator of Russia's most famous Linux distribution, has opened a new business line dedicated to neural networks called Astra AI. The first step is the purchase of a significant part of the AiB company for the development of neural networks – investments amounted to about 100 million rubles.
The Astra Group, the developer of the most famous Russian desktop OS Astra Linux, announced the launch of a new independent business line. It is called "Astra AI" and is directly related to artificial intelligence. A similar name was given to the company's trusted AI, which will work inside the IT perimeter of customers.
According to the Astra Group, the creation of Astra AI is not an expansion of the product line, but "the formation of a separate technological contour within the ecosystem: from infrastructure and a secure cloud to application solutions for automating business processes, working with corporate knowledge, documents and data."
The launch of a new business line began with the purchase of a stake in AiB, which operates in the field of artificial intelligence. Vedomosti, citing Dmitry Komissarov, co-founder of the MyOffice company, writes that the purchase could cost about 100 million rubles.
"It is this deal that allows the new business to rely not only on the group's infrastructure base, but also on ready-made expertise in creating industrial AI solutions," representatives of the Astra Group told CNews.
The Astra Group said that all solutions combined under the new Astra II brand are "focused on operation within the company's perimeter, compatibility with domestic infrastructure software and subsequent certification of key components according to regulatory requirements."
"Joining the AIB's Astra Group reinforces this strategy with practical experience. The association has more than 50 specialists, a significant part of whom are graduates of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. The team's competencies cover multi-agent systems, machine learning, predictive analytics, optimization of large language models, and application software development. Specialists work with time series, tabular data, natural language, text arrays and voice messages," the Astra Group added.
According to the Contour service.Focus", AiB is AIB LLC, founded in Moscow in March 2022 with an authorized capital of 13.5 thousand rubles. Its main activity is software development (OKVED code - 62.01). The Astra Group bought a 26% stake in AiB through its subsidiary Astra Investments. Other co-owners acted as sellers: Andrey Gantimurov's share decreased from 33.3% to 24.64%, and the share of AiB CEO Vladimir Nelyub decreased from 66.7% to 49.36%. Vedomosti notes that Vladimir Nelyub is associated with the Astra Group. Previously, he served as its Director of Science and Artificial Intelligence. He became CEO of AIB in March 2026.
AiB's revenue in 2025 amounted to 93.3 million rubles, which is 68% less than in 2024. The company's net profit for 2025 was 42.3 million rubles, and in 2024 it amounted to 237.4 million rubles. Representatives of AiB did not comment on such a radical collapse of the main financial indicators at the time of the release of the material. In the four years of its existence, AiB has not yet managed to become a significant market participant. Head of the AI department Cloud.ru Dmitry Yudin calls the company a "niche player." He told Vedomosti that its flagship product is the RAZUM AI low–code platform, designed for training and using ML models.
The company is also a defendant in an arbitration case for 11 million rubles. Relex filed a lawsuit against her in December 2025. Case no. A40-345526/2025 "On non-fulfillment or improper fulfillment of obligations under work contracts". According to Vedomosti, citing its sources in the Astra Group, the company is considering the possibility of increasing its stake in AiB. Everything will depend on the results of its work, but for now there is a possibility that the Astra Group will increase its share to the control one, that is, it may exceed 50%.
