Prometheus, the bodily AI startup co-founded by Jeff Bezos and Vik Bajaj, the previous co-founder of Verily, Google’s life sciences unit, introduced it raised $12 billion at a $41 billion valuation.
The brand new funds got here from Bezos himself, in addition to from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock, amongst others.
That is the second fundraise spherical for Prometheus, which launched late final 12 months with an preliminary increase of $6.2 billion, according to CNBC.
Prometheus is constructing what it calls an “synthetic common engineer” — software program able to automating the design and manufacturing of advanced bodily techniques, from jet engines to drug compounds.
The ambition is sweeping: change massive swaths of engineering work with AI. Though the startup will automate many elements of an engineer’s job, Bezos informed CNBC that the productiveness positive factors AI delivers will result in what he calls “labor shortage” — his time period for a world the place demand for human staff outpaces provide.
That places him at odds with quite a few distinguished voices in tech. Whereas some AI leaders predict widespread job losses, Bezos sees it otherwise.
“Vital productiveness within the financial system goes to lift the usual of residing,” he stated. “Individuals who as we speak have two-earner households, they’ll develop into one-earner households. Perhaps some people who find themselves working time beyond regulation will cease working time beyond regulation.”
The corporate, which at the moment has 150 workers throughout places of work in San Francisco, London, and Zurich, is protecting the specifics of what it has already constructed beneath wraps.
Bezos indicated that a big portion of the capital will go towards the corporate’s massive compute wants.
Bezos is aware of one thing about labor at scale. Amazon — the place he serves as govt chairman and is the biggest particular person shareholder — employs greater than 1.5 million individuals worldwide and over the previous 12 months, beneath CEO Andy Jassy, has laid off tens of thousands of individuals as the corporate has accelerated its personal automation push.
At $41 billion, Prometheus is likely one of the most richly valued AI startups ever funded, and one of many largest single bets on the bodily AI sector. Nevertheless it isn’t the one firm attracting huge investor curiosity. In current months, enterprise capitalists have more and more poured capital into bodily AI, a booming sector that buyers and founders argue is inherently extra defensible than pure software program — as a result of the bodily world creates moats that code alone can not.
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