Jeff Bezos' New Startup Prometheus to Focus on 'Artificial General Engineer'
Jeff Bezos' startup Prometheus has raised $12 billion to develop physical AI that speeds up the invention loop.
In November, Jeff Bezos announced he would become co-CEO of a new startup called Prometheus, which initially said it would focus on 'physical AI'—a term for applying deep learning principles to robotics and manufacturing—but details were scarce. Now, with a major new funding round, Bezos and co-founder Vik Bajaj have shared more specifics.
The funding round is significant: $12 billion now, after an initial $6.2 billion last year, giving the company a valuation of $41 billion. Investors include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and others, along with a sizable amount from Bezos' own wealth. The startup currently employs 150 people.
Much of that funding will go toward buying compute power. 'One of the reasons we’ve had to raise a significant amount of funding is because… what we’re doing is very compute-intensive and we need to create that data,' Bezos told CNBC.
So what exactly are they doing? Bezos summarized a significant portion of the company’s focus as creating an 'artificial general engineer.' 'All societal wealth is driven by invention,' Bezos told The New York Times. 'Six thousand years ago, somebody invented the plow, and we all got wealthier. Then, much later, somebody invented the steam engine, and we all got wealthier.' He went on to say that 'what Prometheus seeks to do is to offer a set of tools that dramatically accelerates that invention loop.'
