The startup is valued at $32 billion! Google, NVIDIA, and star VCs are flocking to invest, this is the appeal of "AI guru" Ilya Sutskever

Author: Li Xiaoyin

Source: Hard AI

The AI investment competition escalates again! Google and NVIDIA back Ilya Sutskever's new company, with valuation soaring to $32 billion.

According to a report by Reuters on Friday, Google's parent company Alphabet and chip giant NVIDIA have quietly invested in Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a new company founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. Additionally, the Financial Times reported that SSI has raised $2 billion in its latest funding round, with a staggering valuation of $32 billion, compared to just $5 billion in September last year.

This funding round was led by venture capital firm Greenoaks, which invested $500 million, with other participants including well-known venture capital firms such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz.

Analysts point out that the involvement of Google and NVIDIA not only provides financial support to SSI but also means that these two companies may gain a competitive edge in the future technological developments of SSI, which is crucial for their positions in the AI chip and software services market.

AI Talent War: Tech Giants Bet on OpenAI's Departing Executives

SSI was co-founded by Sutskever, Daniel Gross (former head of Apple's AI department), and investor and AI researcher Daniel Levy, and was established in June last year.

It is noteworthy that OpenAI's former chief technology officer Mira Murati also founded an AI startup called Thinking Machines Lab in February this year, and it is rumored that the company is also raising a similar amount of funding.

This funding round further proves that investors' valuations of AI companies, which have yet to prove the viability of their products, have far exceeded traditional investment logic—SSI has been established for only a year, has not launched any products, yet has secured over $3 billion in funding, with a valuation of $32 billion, which is almost unimaginable in any other industry.

Some believe that tech giants are diversifying their investment portfolios in the AI field by investing in these startups led by former OpenAI executives, ensuring they do not fall behind in the next wave of AI technological revolution.

This means that the competition in the AI field has shifted from a pure capital battle to a talent war, and as the core asset in this war, the value of top AI researchers is being reassessed by the market.

SSI's Ambition: More Powerful and Intelligent

Reports indicate that SSI aims to create AI models that are more powerful and intelligent than the top models currently offered by competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Sutskever stated in a media interview last year that he and his team have "identified a new mountain to climb, which is somewhat different from the work I was previously engaged in." According to several individuals close to the company, SSI maintains a high level of confidentiality with its investors, but three informed sources indicated that the company is developing and expanding a unique approach to AI models. **

Currently, large language models can synthesize and regenerate data. Although they are improving in providing thoughtful answers and executing continuous tasks, they have not yet surpassed human intelligence. According to sources close to the company, SSI is focusing on this technological breakthrough