The company named by Jeff Bezos after the titan who stole fire from the gods is quietly raising tens of billions of dollars to buy firms affected by AI
“Project Prometheus”, Jeff Bezos' new artificial intelligence company, is raising tens of billions of dollars to acquire companies affected by this very technology, trying to take advantage of the disruptions that the Amazon founder anticipates will reshape the industrial sector, reports futurism.com.
Project Prometheus, the code name for a new company led by Bezos and former Google executive Vikram Bajaj, raised $6.2 billion late last year alone.
The funding, from investors including Robert Nelsen, founder of Seattle-based Arch Venture Partners, supports Prometheus' quest to use artificial intelligence to transform industrial production and the manufacturing sector.
According to new information recently published by the Financial Times, the group is separately in talks for a new round of funding for a holding company that would invest in groups that Bezos and Bajaj anticipate will be affected by its technology.
The new holding company would operate as a “transformational vehicle for industrial production,” with tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to acquire businesses, two people familiar with the plan said.
Prometheus is in preliminary discussions with several major sovereign wealth funds, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, regarding investments in the holding company. The name of Bezos' new company is a reference to the titan who, according to Greek mythology, stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans.
What is the main objective of “Project Prometheus”
Prometheus aims to build novel artificial intelligence systems that go beyond large linguistic models (LLMs) with the ability to map the real world and understand design and engineering processes.
The company is targeting the complex manufacturing processes behind things ranging from airplane engines to computer chips, with the goal of making them much faster and more resource-efficient.
To start training its AI systems, the company has already acquired data from these industries.
Bezos is co-CEO — his first such leadership role after stepping down as Amazon CEO in 2021 — and is actively involved in day-to-day operations, according to people familiar with the situation.
Jeff Bezos' new company has hired specialists from OpenAI and Google DeepMind
The company has recruited more than 100 employees, including specialists from OpenAI, DeepMind (Google) and Meta, whose technical expertise covers areas such as large language models, computer vision, weather forecasting and optimization of advanced chips for physics simulations. Prometheus is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in London and Zurich.
The artificial intelligence lab has also started recruiting engineers near New Delhi to create accurate 3D models of components used to make equipment such as engines, people familiar with the company's plans said.
“Finding out how to reinvent the physical world is a major challenge,” financier Robert Nelsen, who has been given a directorship at Prometheus, told an audience at a summit organized by JPMorgan Chase bank last month. “[Dar] the pace of innovation in AI right now is really hard to underestimate,” he added.
Nelsen also said he believes Prometheus will become “one of the most important companies in the world.”
