en.Wedoany.com Reported - Prometheus Inc., an artificial intelligence startup co-led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has completed a $12 billion funding round.
The Series B round values the company at $41 billion, with investors including Bezos, JPMorgan, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, DST Global, and Arch Venture Partners. Prometheus, previously known as Project Prometheus, had already raised $6.1 billion.
Bezos co-founded the company in November last year with Vik Bajaj, co-founder of Alphabet's Verily life sciences division, and the two serve as co-CEOs. The duo told CNBC today that Prometheus is developing a suite of AI tools designed to accelerate hardware development. In an interview with Axios, Bezos said he expects the software to speed up engineering workflows by a factor of 10 or more.
The company prioritizes broad application scenarios, with its software capable of designing robots, jet engines, and drugs. Bezos told Axios that the technology could also help cloud operators improve their data centers, hinting that the tools would be able to automate chip development tasks.
The company plans to focus on the prototyping and small-batch trial production stages of engineering projects, but has not yet disclosed specific details on how it will accelerate these tasks.
Several AI engineering tools already on the market speed up prototyping by allowing users to quickly generate multiple versions of product designs. Some startups, such as PhysicsX Ltd., are also automating the simulation phase of prototyping projects, testing AI-generated design variants in simulations to determine the optimal solution.
Simulations use partial differential equations—functions suitable for describing physical phenomena—to replicate the real world, requiring significant hardware to run. AI engineering tools use algorithms called neural operators, which are specifically optimized to solve equations, to accelerate computations.
Another focus for Prometheus is optimizing the small-batch trial production stage, where prototypes are produced in small quantities, typically using 3D printers. Its software will be able to optimize small-batch trial production equipment.
The company faces competition not only from startups like PhysicsX but also from more established players. Autodesk Inc., Synopsys Inc., and Cadence Design Systems Inc. have integrated AI capabilities into their engineering applications, automating not only prototyping workflows but also other tasks such as checking component designs for regulatory compliance.
According to reports, Prometheus will use most of the $12 billion in funding to purchase computing infrastructure, and may also pursue additional acquisitions. Last year, the company acquired a startup called General Agents Inc., which developed AI agents optimized for multi-step computer use tasks.
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