OpenAI Co-founder's New AI Startup SSI Raises $1 Bln

Safe Superintelligence Inc. or SSI, the new safety-focused AI startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, has raised around $1 billion in the latest round. With the latest investment, the company is reportedly valued at around $5 billion.

As per an update on the SSI site, investors for the new firm, which was launched in June, include NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and SV Angel.

The American firm with offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel notes that building safe superintelligence is the most important technical problem of the present time.

Reuters quoted SSI chief executive Daniel Gross, “It’s important for us to be surrounded by investors who understand, respect, and support our mission, which is to make a straight shot to safe superintelligence and in particular to spend a couple of years doing R&D on our product before bringing it to market.”

SSI was founded by Sutskever along with Gross, who earlier was with Apple’s AI and search, and former OpenAI employee Daniel Levy.

SSI, which currently has 10 employees, reportedly plans to use the funds to acquire computing power and to hire highly talented executives.

On the SSI website, the founders noted that they have started the world’s first straight-shot SSI lab, with one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence. According to them, technical problems need to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs, and they plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible, while making sure safety always remains ahead.

The company said it is assembling a lean, cracked team of the world’s best engineers and researchers dedicated to focusing on SSI.

Sutskever was the chief scientist of OpenAI, the developer of the generative chatbot ChatGPT, and co-led the company’s Superalignment team.

Sutskever was one of the OpenAI board members involved in the ousting and rehiring of co-founder and CEO Sam Altman. After Altman’s return, Sutskever was immediately removed from the board. Following this, he stayed away from the company’s day-to-day operations for months.

In May this year, he left the artificial intelligence startup, indicating about an upcoming project, and in June, SSI was launched.