AI startup Recursive has officially emerged from stealth, calling recursive self-improvement the "fastest path to superintelligence."
"The fastest path to superintelligence will be realized by AI that recursively improves itself, and does so via open-ended algorithms that drive endless innovation," the company's announcement states. The team's plan is to start by building AI that improves AI, then expand the approach to other scientific fields.
Co-founder Tim Rocktäschel draws on Stanisław Lem's concept of an "information barrier" - the point where available knowledge grows so fast that humans can no longer keep up with it or meaningfully integrate it. Recursive wants to break through that barrier by fully automating the scientific method, starting with AI research itself.
The final funding round totals $650 million at a $4.65 billion valuation, led by GV (Google Ventures) and Greycroft, with AMD Ventures and Nvidia also participating. In April, the Financial Times had reported a figure north of $500 million.
The company is led by Richard Socher (formerly Salesforce) and Tim Rocktäschel (formerly Google Deepmind), alongside researchers from OpenAI, Meta, and Uber AI. So far, the company hasn't published any concrete technical results.
