Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has nearly closed a major funding round for his new artificial intelligence lab, Project Prometheus. The company is expecting to raise $10 billion from a group of major investors. This is reported by the Financial Times.
After the deal closes, the startup’s market value could rise to $38 billion. In this case, Project Prometheus will become one of the most expensive young projects in the world at an early stage of development.
For Jeff Bezos, this is the first time since 2021 that he has taken on an operational role again after stepping down as Amazon CEO. Together with co-CEO Vikram Bajaj, he is personally involved in raising funding.
JPMorgan and BlackRock have joined the new investment round, but the parties have not yet officially commented on their participation. The financing structure also includes funds received in November last year, but due to significant interest from investors, the round was decided to be expanded.
Project Prometheus is developing artificial intelligence systems that should understand the laws of physics. Unlike models that work mainly with text, these technologies are created for use in engineering, architecture and industrial production.
The company has already attracted hundreds of specialists, including researchers in the field of artificial intelligence and specialists in computing infrastructure. They work in offices in San Francisco, London and Zurich. The main task of the project is to create specialized models that can automate and accelerate complex physical processes.
Previously, Amazon announced its intention to invest up to $50 billion in the development of artificial intelligence and supercomputing infrastructure for Amazon Web Services customers among US government agencies.
