Ilya Sutskever’s Safety First AI Company Receives $1B in Funding

Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI, has raised $1 billion in funding for his new AI venture, Safe Superintelligence (SSI).?

After leaving the ChatGPT maker in May this year, Sutskever founded SSI with a clear mission. The Israeli-Canadian computer scientist firmly believes AI will emerge with stronger intelligence than humans over the next decade and that requires a response.

“SSI is our mission, our name, and our entire product roadmap because it is our sole focus,” a company post on X said after the launch.

Investors have rallied around SSI to give the company a solid financial base to achieve growth. Firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global SV Angel, and NFDG, an investment partnership co-run by SSI executive Daniel Gross, have all contributed.

There have been no public comments regarding SSI’s valuation, but sources close to the project intimated to Reuters that it was around $5 billion. Despite the limited potential for returns in the short term, the investment shows that institutional investors are still willing to back AI research ventures led by individuals with the relevant credentials.

Investment Will Deliver Growth For SSI

Sustkever fits that profile, given he was a senior executive at OpenAI, serving as chief scientist and co-leader of the Superalignment team. Jan Lieke was the other leader, but he left in May, taking up a position with rival AI entity Anthropic. The loss of the duo led to OpenAI disbanding the team.

Lieke previously critiqued Sam Altman’s company, stating OpenAI’s “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.”

SSI will now use its significant resources to scale up its workforce and computing assets.

The company will grow from its current headcount of 10, building a curated team to fit the ethos of the project, with engineers and researchers to be based between Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv in Israel.

At SSI, Sutskever is joined by Daniel Gross, a former leading light in Apple’s AI search and operations, as well as Daniel Levy, another executive with a background at OpenAI.