Jeff Bezos Leads $300M Funding to Develop Human-Level AI

Prominent artificial intelligence (AI) firm Skild AI recently secured a $300 million series A funding featuring Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Japanese multinational company, Softbank and others. As a unicorn in the AI space, the Skild AI platform specializes in designing and developing AI systems that can be modified into a “general-purpose brain.”

Large-scale AI Funding

According to the startup’s blog post, the investment round was carried out at a $1.5 billion valuation, with Jeff Bezos’ venture capital firm, Bezos Expeditions, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Coatue, the largest contributors. Other investors include Amazon, Felicis Ventures, CRV, Menlo Ventures, Carnegie Mellon University, Sequoia, General Catalyst, and SV Angel.

This significant financial support illustrates the rising interest in and assurance in the bold move by Skild AI. Skild AI joins the ranks of well-known companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic AI, and xAI, contributing to the significant development of AI. The ultimate goal of these groups’ collaborative efforts is to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI, that is on par with human intelligence.

Artificial General Intelligence’s Aim

Though AGI has generated a lot of excitement, it’s vital to remember that it’s still theoretical and highly speculative. The precise traits that would separate a real AGI from an advanced AI system are a topic of debate among scientists and technologists.

There is currently no agreed-upon scientific definition for artificial general intelligence (AGI) or supporting data. Since there’s no actual evidence to support the idea that attaining AGI is a realistic prospect within the confines of present science, the concept is still mainly theoretical.

Still, Skild AI is committed to making significant strides in this field. Accordingly, the corporation is pursuing the creation of advanced robot operating systems, which it refers to as a modular artificial intelligence “brain.”

If the systems and gadgets meet certain power and connectivity requirements, this ‘brain’ could be retrofitted into them. Even though there isn’t much information available right now about this product or service, the vision shows a brave move in the direction of incorporating cutting-edge AI into commonplace applications.

Future Outlook

Meanwhile, the company’s strategic plan and prospective alliances were not specified in the announcement of Skild AI’s Series A funding. Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s participation in the funding round suggests possible future partnerships.

With its enormous resources and technological prowess, Amazon can be a valuable partner for Skild AI, offering crucial assistance in the creation and implementation of cutting-edge AI systems. Furthermore, other robotics-focused businesses like Boston Dynamics could become important allies.

Even though these potential partners aren’t primarily concerned with developing AI systems that can think like humans, they can gain from incorporating Skild AI’s modular brain into their robotics technology. Notably, significant infrastructure expenditures will be required for Skild AI to construct an AI brain in the future.

It is similar to what’s needed to create complex AI models like Grok from xAI and ChatGPT from OpenAI. Therefore, the company would need appropriate hardware from leading chip makers like Nvidia and AMD. Moreover, Amazon Web Services, the company’s top cloud services platform, and its sizable GPU cluster, previously used to design its Bedrock AI system, may provide invaluable resources and infrastructure assistance.