Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) has released Aether 3.6, a platform update to its Nebius AI Cloud service, introducing new infrastructure management tools, security features, and storage capabilities.

The release includes Nebius Echo, an AI agent embedded in the web console that allows users to manage cloud infrastructure through natural-language commands. The tool runs on open-source models hosted on the company's own inference platform, Token Factory.

On the security side, Aether 3.6 adds a Key Management Service following a customer-managed encryption keys model, Workload Identity Federation for cross-cloud credential management, and IAM-based access controls for its managed Slurm-on-Kubernetes solution. A new Budgets feature lets users set spending thresholds and receive cost alerts.

Storage updates include a new Intelligent storage class for Object Storage that automatically moves data to a lower-cost tier after 30 days of inactivity. The company reports a 30% read bandwidth improvement for single-threaded connections using the Enhanced class, a 3x performance improvement for 4 KB file operations on Shared Filesystem, and up to 100x more IOPS for metadata-heavy workloads.

Additional updates include a Managed Service for SkyPilot, disk snapshots, Local SSD support on GPU servers at new data centers, and Datadog Log Management integration. Kubernetes has been updated to version 1.34.

Alongside the platform release, Nebius is launching a Builder Program offering credits across its cloud, inference, and education products, along with a Certification Program. The first credential, AI Cloud Ops (Associate), is available for $1 during an early-bird period. A free trial offering $5 in credits for preemptible virtual machines is also being introduced.