Jeff Bezos’ Prometheus raises $12B to accelerate industrial engineering projects
Prometheus Inc., an artificial intelligence startup co-led by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has raised $12 billion in funding.
Axios reported today that the Series B round values the company at $41 billion. The round included contributions from Bezos, JPMorgan, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, DST Global and Arch Venture Partners. Prometheus, which was until now known as Project Prometheus, previously raised $6.1 billion.
Bezos launched the company last November with Vik Bajaj, a co-founder of Alphabet Inc.’s Verily life sciences unit. They lead Prometheus as co-Chief Executive Officers. The duo told CNBC today that Prometheus is developing a set of AI tools designed to speed up hardware development. In a separate interview with Axios, Bezos stated that he expects the software to accelerate engineering workflows by a factor of 10 or more.
Prometheus is prioritizing a broad range of use cases. Its software will reportedly be capable of designing robots, jet engines and drugs. Bezos told Axios the technology could also help cloud operators improve their data centers. That hints Prometheus’ tools will be capable of automating chip development tasks.
