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Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence Inc. lands $1B investment | CIO
webReports on Safe Superintelligence Inc.'s $1B funding round, a company founded by ex-OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever explicitly focused on building safe superintelligence, representing a significant organizational development in the AI safety landscape.
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Summary
Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), founded by Ilya Sutskever after his departure from OpenAI, raised $1 billion from investors including a16z, Sequoia, and DST Global. The company aims to develop safe superintelligence by treating safety and capabilities as co-equal technical problems, insulated from short-term commercial pressures. SSI plans to use the funds to acquire compute and hire top AI talent.
Key Points
- •SSI raised $1B from NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and SV Angel just months after its June 2024 founding.
- •Sutskever's stated mission is to advance capabilities and safety in tandem as technical problems, free from commercial pressures.
- •The company has only 10 employees and plans to hire in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv.
- •Analysts note SSI and OpenAI share the AGI destination but differ fundamentally: SSI targets one product while OpenAI commercializes many.
- •A key challenge for SSI will be compute costs, as OpenAI benefits from substantial Microsoft cloud credits.
1 FactBase fact citing this source
| Entity | Property | Value | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) | Headcount | 10 | Sep 2024 |
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Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence Inc. lands $1B investment | CIO
by Paul Barker
Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence Inc. lands $1B investment
News
Sep 4, 2024 4 mins
OpenAI co-founder’s new company plans to use the funding to acquire computing power and to hire top talent.
Credit: Shutterstock
The company that OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever formed in June following his departure from the organization has already raised $1 billion in venture capital funding, a post on social network X stated Wednesday.
Sutskever left OpenAI in May, six months after being one of the board members who pushed fellow co-founder Sam Altman out over concerns about his honesty, and in his message announcing his departure he said, “I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time.”
That project turned out to be Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), which he co-founded with Daniel Gross, co-founder of the search engine company Cue (acquired by Apple in 2013), and Daniel Levy, a former OpenAI researcher.
SSI, as described by Sutskever in his announcement , is a company that approaches “safety and capabilities in tandem, as technical problems to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs. We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead.”
He went on to say that the company’s business model “means safety, security and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures. This way we can scale in peace.”
The message appears to have hit home; the posting from SSI announcing the funding reads: “SSI building a straight shot to safe superintelligence. We’ve raised $1B from NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and SV Angel. We’re hiring.”
Reuters reported Wednesday that the company, which currently has 10 employees, plans to use the funds to acquire computing power and to hire top talent that will be based either in Palo Alto, California or Tel Aviv, Israel.
Asked for his thoughts on the new funding, Brandon Purcell, VP, principal analyst at Forrester Research said, “theoretically, there is an inherent competition between OpenAI and SSI, which both have the
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