The Nebius AI Cloud 3.6 release, codenamed Aether, debuts Nebius Echo — an AI agent embedded in the web console to control infrastructure via natural language, running on Nebius Token Factory models with guardrails.

Echo handles core cloud operations and infrastructure debugging, and the roadmap includes multi-step infrastructure-as-code deployments.

Echo supports questions, core operations automation, and signals a move toward agentic AI that Provision resources as workloads demand.

Security and governance updates introduce CMEK-enabled Key Management Service, cryptographic erasure, Workload Identity Federation for credential-free authentication, improved access controls for Soperator and Kubernetes, BYOI for compliant base images, and Datadog Log Management integration.

Additional controls for Soperator (Slurm-on-Kubernetes) and Managed Kubernetes include BYOI for compliant images and a new Budgets feature for FinOps alerting.

Overall security and governance enhancements feature CMEK via a customer-managed KMS, Workload Identity Federation to reduce credential sprawl, IAM-based access to Soperator, managed Kubernetes API access controls, and a Budgets tool to govern costs.

Pricing calculator updates, enhanced orchestration, and roadmap items that include infrastructure debugging and multi-step infrastructure-as-code deployments.

Shared filesystem improvements increase 4K file operations efficiency by 3x and metadata-heavy workload IOPS by up to 100x, with no explicit price provided.

Storage and performance gains include local SSDs on GPU servers for caching, Intelligent Object Storage Class with automatic cost-tiering, up to 30% higher single-threaded read bandwidth, 4K IOPS up to 3x, metadata workload IOPS up to 100x, and validated clustering up to 100 PB with Kubernetes v1.34 support.

The storage portfolio adds automatic data tiering with an Intelligent storage class, native point-in-time snapshots, automatic managed-disk deletion, and performance improvements across multiple components.

New storage features feature improved local SSD caching, cost-efficient automatic tiering, and broader performance gains across storage components.

Datadog Log Management integration, Kubernetes v1.34 support, improved Audit Log metrics, and enhanced compute failure visibility are part of the release, with a full changelog available.