Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos appears to be getting his palms soiled as soon as once more: The billionaire is partly backing a brand new AI startup known as Venture Prometheus that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, and can tackle duties as co-chief govt of the brand new enterprise, The New York Instances reported, citing a number of sources conversant in the venture.
Bezos will share the place with Vik Bajaj, who beforehand led and co-founded Google’s life sciences division. Bajaj additionally co-founded Verily, a biotech startup owned by Alphabet, and is the co-founder of Foresite Labs, an AI-focused affiliate of funding agency Foresite Capital, although the report notes he just lately left the agency to start out Prometheus, the report mentioned.
Bezos could be returning to operations for the primary time since he stepped away from Amazon in 2021.
In accordance with the NYT, the startup goes to construct AI merchandise for engineering and manufacturing in numerous fields like computer systems, aerospace, and cars. Venture Prometheus is targeted on “AI for the bodily financial system,” per its LinkedIn web page, and the report famous that its work will resemble that of Periodic Labs, which is constructing expertise to hurry up scientific analysis by simulating the bodily world to coach AI fashions.
The corporate already has virtually 100 employees, together with researchers from AI corporations like Meta, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind, the report mentioned.
Amazon and Bajaj didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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