Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a company founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, has raised $1 billion in funding. This funding was provided by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, SV Angel, and NFDG. NFDG is an investment partnership that is led by Nat Friedman and SSI CEO Daniel Gross. Sources with Reuters suggested that this funding was at a valuation of $5 billion.
Sutskever was originally the chief scientist at OpenAI and he co-led the Superalignment team. And Sutskever launched SSI with Gross (previously headed up AI and search teams at Apple) and Daniel Levy (former OpenAI employee). Currently, SSI has offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv.
“We approach 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,” says the SSI website. “Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures.”
SSI has 10 employees and the funding will be used for acquiring more computing power and hiring more talent. SSI will also partner with cloud and chip companies for funding computing power.
