Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised over $1B in funding from investors including NFDG (an investment partnership run by Nat Friedman and SSI CEO Daniel Gross), a16z, Sequoia, DST Global and SV Angel.
SSI told Reuters it plans to use the funding to acquire computing power and hire researchers and engineers in both Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, though it has not yet said what exactly it will research.
Reuters reported, citing sources, that the new funding values SSI at $5 billion.
Prior to SSI, Sutskever led OpenAI's now-disbanded Superalignment team, which focused on general AI safety research. Sutskever quietly left OpenAI several months after a highly publicized rift between several former OpenAI executives and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that he called a “communication breakdown.”