This scientist left OpenAI last year. His startup is already worth $30 billion.
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AI researcher Ilya Sutskever is the primary reason venture capitalists are putting some $2 billion into his secretive company Safe Superintelligence, according to people familiar with the matter. The new funding round values SSI at $30 billion, making it one of the most valuable AI startups in the world. Sutskever became one of the industry’s most revered AI researchers as chief scientist at OpenAI, where he helped develop the technology behind ChatGPT.
He left OpenAI last year following a painful rupture with the company’s chief executive, Sam Altman. SSI says it doesn’t plan to release any products until it develops super intelligence—an industry term for an AI that can outsmart experts in nearly every field. Competitors like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to develop similarly advanced systems, but are releasing consumer chatbots and business applications in the interim to generate revenue and demonstrate their progress.
Sutskever has told associates he isn’t developing advanced AI using the same methods he and colleagues used at OpenAI. He has said he has instead identified a “different mountain to climb" that is showing early signs of promise, according to people close to the company. “Everyone is curious about exactly what he’s pushing and exactly what the insight is," said James Cham, a partner at venture firm Bloomberg Beta, which hasn’t invested in SSI.
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