Jeff Bezos Returns as Co-CEO of $6.2B AI Startup Project Prometheus

With a new company, Jeff Bezos will become a CEO again

Jeff Bezos is one of the world's richest and most famous tech CEOs, but he hasn't actually been a CEO of anything since 2021. That's now changing as he takes on the role of co-CEO of a new AI company, according to a New York Times report citing three people familiar with the company. Grandiosely named Project Prometheus (and not to be confused with the NASA project of the same name), the company will focus on using AI to pursue breakthroughs in research, engineering, manufacturing, and other fields that are dubbed part of "the physical economy" -- in contrast to the software applications that are likely the first thing most people in the general public think of when they hear "AI." Bezos' co-CEO will be Dr. Vik Bajaj, a chemist and physicist who previously led life sciences work at Google X, an Alphabet-backed research group that worked on speculative projects that could lead to more product categories. (For example, it developed technologies that would later underpin Google's Waymo service.) Bajaj also worked at Verily, another Alphabet-backed research group focused on life sciences, and Foresite Labs, an incubator for new AI companies. This is speculation, but Bajaj resume's suggests he may lead the R&D efforts at Project Prometheus while Bezos focuses on the logistics and the business side. Project Prometheus already has nearly 100 employees, having poached researchers from the AI divisions at big tech firms like OpenAI and Meta. It appears it may compete directly with Periodic Labs and other companies in the physical and research AI space, but its chief distinction is its level of funding: Project Prometheus is launching with $6.2 billion in funding, at least partially from Bezos himself. That's more than most of the companies it will compete with. Bezos founded Amazon in the '90s and turned a website for ordering books into a sprawling, multi-industry company perhaps best known for its logistics dominance. Since then, he has attracted more public attention for his lavish personal life, though he has also held a leadership role at Blue Origin, a space company that competes with Elon Musk's Space X. Bezos' title at Blue Origin is founder but not CEO.

Jeff Bezos reportedly returns to the trenches as co-CEO of new AI startup, Project Prometheus | TechCrunch

Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos seems to be getting his hands dirty once again: the billionaire is partly backing a new AI startup called Project Prometheus that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, and will take on duties as co-chief executive of the new venture, the New York Times reported, citing several sources familiar with the project. Bezos will share the position with Vik Bajaj, who previously led and co-founded Google's life sciences division. Bajaj also co-founded Verily, a biotech startup owned by Alphabet, and is the co-founder of Foresite Labs, an AI-focused affiliate of investment firm Foresite Capital, though the report notes he recently left the firm to start Prometheus, the report said. Bezos would be returning to operations for the first time since he stepped away from Amazon in 2021. According to the NYT, the startup is going to build AI products for engineering and manufacturing in various fields like computers, aerospace and automobiles. Project Prometheus is focused on "AI for the physical economy", per its LinkedIn page, and the report noted that its work will resemble that of Periodic Labs, which is building technology to speed up scientific research by simulating the physical world to train AI models. The company already has almost 100 staff, including researchers from AI firms like Meta, OpenAI and Google DeepMind, the report said. Amazon and Bajaj did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jeff Bezos will be co-CEO of AI startup Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos is getting a new job. He'll reportedly become co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a new startup that he's partly funding. The company's exact plans are still unknown, but its focus is on AI that could improve manufacturing in fields including computing, automobiles, and aerospace. The New York Times reports that Project Prometheus is already one of the better funded early-stage start-ups in the world, with $6.2 billion in investment, in part from Bezos himself. In addition to financing the venture, he'll help run the company together with co-founder Vik Bajaj. He's a physicist and chemist who once worked at Google X, the company's experimental "moonshot factory," before running health tech company Verily, an Alphabet-owned venture spun out of that division. Project Prometheus reportedly has nearly 100 employees already, including former staff from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. With Bezos now among them, this will be his first formal operational role at a company since he stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021, though since then he's taken a keen interest in his SpaceX rival Blue Origin, which last week completed the first successful landing of its New Glenn booster.

Jeff Bezos Has a New AI Company, But He's Not Making a Chatbot

Jeff Bezos has a new project: an AI company called Project Prometheus. Bezos will serve as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, who previously worked at Google X and Google's biotech arm, Verily, The New York Times reports. Details on Project Prometheus are light. The NYT isn't even sure when it was founded, though Bajaj's LinkedIn profile says he has served as its co-founder and co-CEO since November 2025. He lists San Francisco, London, and Zurich as locations. It does not appear that Bezos is interested in creating a ChatGPT rival or video generator, like Elon Musk did with xAI. Instead, Project Prometheus will focus on the engineering and manufacturing of computers, automobiles, and spacecraft. This is broadly referred to as "physical AI," a concept that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has long touted as the next wave in AI development. Last month, he said physical AI would transform "the world's factories into intelligent thinking machines -- the engines of a new industrial revolution." Last year, Bezos also invested in AI robotics company Physical Intelligence (as did OpenAI). Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers from top AI firms such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta, the NYT says. This would be Bezos' first operational role since leaving Amazon in 2021. He founded Blue Origin, but a former Amazon exec, Dave Limp, serves as CEO. He also owns The Washington Post. It's possible Blue Origin could benefit from the technology Project Prometheus develops if Bezos decides to share data. Musk has done this; he put xAI's Grok voice assistant into Tesla cars, for example, although they are separate companies. Bezos is coming off a win last week with Blue Origin, which successfully landed a rocket booster for the first time.

Jeff Bezos returns as co-CEO of $6.2B AI startup Prometheus

Named after titan who stole fire from the gods and was punished for eternity... Amazon warehouse staff know the feeling Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is returning to the CEO seat - though not at his best-known creation. Bezos is going to be co-CEO of an AI company called Project Prometheus, marking his first operational role since handing over Amazon's reins to Andy Jassy in mid-2021. Despite only being revealed to the world in a Monday New York Times article, his new venture can reportedly already boast $6.2 billion in funding. Unsurprisingly, some of that cash comes from Bezos himself. After all, he is currently the world's third-richest man, with an estimated net worth of around $245 billion. But the startup's already-heaving coffers underscore a supercharged funding trend that is integral to fears over an AI bubble. Back in July, Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab picked up $2 billion in funding at a valuation of $12 billion. The former OpenAI CTO's operation had not even announced a product at the time, let alone any revenues. Thinking Machines Lab has since released an API for fine-tuning language models, but hasn't yet started charging for its use. Nonetheless, the startup is reportedly already chasing more funding at a $50 billion valuation. Safe Superintelligence, co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, also took $2 billion in funding earlier this year at a reported valuation of $30 billion. Again, the "safe AI" company has no product or revenues. Project Prometheus (not to be confused with the nuclear-powered-spacecraft scheme that NASA scrapped two decades ago) will reportedly focus on AI for engineering and manufacturing. One sector it's targeting is aerospace, hinting at some crossover with Bezos' rival to SpaceX, Blue Origin. The NYT report suggests Project Prometheus will focus on building systems that can learn from their observations of and interactions with the physical world. Bezos has form in this area, having participated in a $400 million funding round for AI robotics firm Physical Intelligence a year ago. The other co-CEO of Project Prometheus is Vik Bajaj, a veteran of Google's X "moonshot factory" and Alphabet's life sciences research lab, Verily. Bajaj spent the last seven years leading AI incubator Foresite Labs before joining Project Prometheus. Foresite CTO and chief data scientist Alex Blocker also appears to have come onboard, according to his LinkedIn profile. Project Prometheus reportedly already has nearly 100 employees, many of whom have been tempted across from the likes of OpenAI and Meta. They will surely hope that the new operation develops a better track record than Bezos' previous ventures when it comes to how it treats staff. Blue Origin elicited "toxic" headlines four years ago after disgruntled employees went public with their concerns, and Amazon's working environment is the stuff of legend. ®

Jeff Bezos will head a new engineering-focused AI startup called Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos is spearheading a new AI started called Project Prometheus, focused on his current interests in space and engineering, The New York Times reports. The company, which has yet to be made public, will reportedly have $6.2 billion in funding. Part of that sum will come from Bezos, who will act as co-CEO. Project Prometheus will reportedly focus on creating AI systems that gain knowledge from the physical world, rather than just processing digital information, like AI chatbots. In particular, the company will reportedly explore how AI can support engineering and manufacturing in areas such as vehicles and space technology. Bezos founded space technology company Blue Origin more than two decades ago. The company's New Glenn rocket had a successful second flight last week. He is joined by Vik Bajaj as co-founder and co-CEO. Bajaj is a physicist and chemist who worked on projects at Google X including Wing and what became Waymo. In 2018, he co-founded Foresite Labs, which supports entrepreneurs in the fields of AI and data science. Bajaj is still named as CEO of Foresite Labs on the company's website and his LinkedIn page -- the latter of which also shows his new titles at Project Prometheus. Bajaj lists his involvement in the new company as starting this month and puts San Francisco, London and Zurich as its locations. On its bare LinkedIn page, Project Prometheus' overview states only "AI for the physical economy." It also lists itself as a "Technology, Information and Internet" company with 51-200 employees. According to The New York Times, Project Prometheus has hired nearly 100 people, with some employees coming from fellow AI companies like OpenAI and DeepMind.

Jeff Bezos Creates A.I. Start-Up Where He Will Be Co-Chief Executive

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence start-up that he will help manage as its co-chief executive. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Mr. Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage start-ups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public. This is the first time Mr. Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is deeply involved in Blue Origin, a competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX, his official title at the space company is founder. Since leaving Amazon, Mr. Bezos has received as much attention for his personal life as his businesses, including an extravagant celebrity-filled wedding in Venice earlier this year. He has also become more closely involved in Blue Origin and has shown increasing interest in the race to build artificial intelligence. His new company now firmly plants him in the middle of that competition. Project Prometheus is entering an increasingly crowded A.I. market, with smaller companies trying to carve out niches in a race with industry giants like Google, Meta and Microsoft and pioneering companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new company has until now kept a low profile, and when it was started is not even clear. Project Prometheus is focusing on technology that dovetails with Mr. Bezos' interest in taking people to outer space. The company is focusing on A.I. that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles. It is unclear where Project Prometheus will be based. Mr. Bezos' co-founder and co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory." Google X produced a wide range of ambitious projects, including Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving car that became Waymo. In 2015, Dr. Bajaj was among the founders of Verily, a research lab dedicated to the life sciences that, like Waymo and Wing, is operated by Google's parent company, Alphabet. Three years later, Dr. Bajaj co-founded and became chief executive of Foresite Labs, an effort to incubate new A.I. and data science start-ups. He recently left that job to focus on Project Prometheus, according to the three people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Project Prometheus is among a wave of companies focused on applying A.I. to physical tasks, including robotics, drug design and scientific discovery. This year several prominent researchers left Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big A.I. projects to found a company called Periodic Labs, which is focused on building A.I technology that can accelerate new discoveries in areas like physics and chemistry. Last year, Mr. Bezos invested in Physical Intelligence, a start-up that is applying A.I. to robots. But the $6.2 billion in funding behind Project Prometheus potentially gives it an advantage in the expensive race to build A.I. technologies. Earlier this year, Thinking Machines Lab, founded by a group of former OpenAI employees, raised $2 billion in funding. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from top A.I. companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, the three people said. A number of well-known A.I. companies -- including OpenAI, Google and Meta -- are already working on technologies meant to accelerate work in the physical sciences. Two researchers at Google DeepMind, the company's primary A.I. lab, recently won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on a project called AlphaFold, which can help accelerate drug discovery in small but important ways. Executives at these companies and others in the field often say that large language models -- the technologies that power chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT -- will soon achieve significant scientific breakthroughs. OpenAI and Meta say their technologies are already approaching this goal in areas like math and theoretical physics. But companies like Periodic Labs and now Project Prometheus aim to build A.I. models that learn in more complex ways than chatbots do. Large language models learn their skills by analyzing massive amounts of digital text. By pinpointing patterns in Wikipedia articles, news stories and other information culled from across the internet, these systems learn to mimic the way people put words together. They can even learn to write computer programs and solve math problems. The new companies are focusing on systems that can also learn from the physical world. Periodic Labs, which has $300 million in backing, plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will run scientific experiments on an enormous scale. By analyzing this physical trial and error, A.I. systems can learn to perform experiments largely on their own -- at least in theory. Project Prometheus will explore similar work, according to the people familiar with the company's plans.

Jeff Bezos is building a multi-billion dollar AI manufacturing startup

Project Prometheus co-CEO Vik Bajaj has been involved in a number of moonshot projects with Google over the years Jeff Bezos is gainfully employed once more, after having left his post as Amazon CEO back in 2021. Cade Metz at The New York Times reports that the billionaire founder of space tech giant Blue Origin is now co-CEO at Project Prometheus, a startup that describes itself as building "AI for the physical economy." Indeed, sources who remained anonymous said Project Prometheus is "focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles." The company has already raised US$6.2 billion in funding, and is said to have brought more than 100 employees on board from the likes of Meta, OpenAI, and DeepMind. A number of LinkedIn profiles of its founding members list previous experience at Microsoft, DeepMind, and Nvidia, with AI and robotics research backgrounds. We don't yet know exactly what Project Prometheus will build, or where it will set up shop. What we do know is that Bezos is sharing CEO duties with physicist Vik Bajaj, who has an illustrious track record of working on ambitious ventures. He previously collaborated on Google's X, which has been described as a 'moonshot factory' that birthed projects like Taara light-beamed internet, Waymo robotaxis, the Wing drone delivery service, and exoskeleton-equipped pants. Bajaj also co-founded a life sciences research outfit called Verily, and ran Foresite Labs, which incubates AI startups. There's more that alludes to Project Prometheus' possible ambitions. Last year, Bezos participated in a $400 million funding round for Physical Intelligence, a San Francisco-based startup using AI to enhance robots' capabilities like making espressos without spilling coffee all over the place, and assembling boxes. Metz also notes that the company will be involved in enabling robots to observe and run scientific experiments autonomously and at scale. There's speculation that this might eventually propel Bezos' efforts to get more people to outer space too, though the steps between that and the little we know about this firm are unclear. From the report, it seems more immediately plausible that Project Prometheus' tech could augment the capabilities of humanoids in workplaces - or help build them. AI and robotics are increasingly being incorporated into the manufacturing sector: Agility Robotics claims its Digit bot is the first-ever commercially deployed humanoid robot on factory floors, while Texas-based Apptronik is working towards having its Apollo humanoid manufacture more units of itself. We've also seen AI being deployed to crack chemical combinations for making ammonia, develop stronger nanomaterials, and even advancing the designs of processors to enable artificial intelligence. Bezos is said to have been deeply involved in Blue Origin, which has most recently been working on suborbital tourism, orbital launch systems, and space infrastructure development. The new role will give the third richest man on the planet a new challenge to dive into, especially given that it's currently a fledgling operation in comparison to everything else he's built up thus far.

Jeff Bezos Takes the Reins as Co-CEO at a New AI Startup

The 61-year-old Amazon founder is investing $6.2 billion into a new AI company called Project Prometheus, and he'll serve as the startup's co-CEO, according to the New York Times. The company, which the New York Times has called one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, will focus on building AI to assist engineering and manufacturing operations across industries. Bezos' co-founder and co-CEO in the venture is physicist and chemist Vik Bajaj. He is best known for his work at Google X, the company's moonshot factory that works on "radical new technology." The lab is behind early support for Google-backed companies like robotaxi giant Waymo and life sciences company Verily, which Bajaj co-founded in 2015. Bajaj was most recently the CEO of AI startup incubator Foresite Labs, which he allegedly left to focus on the new venture with Bezos. Besides Bajaj and Bezos, Project Prometheus has almost 100 employees, including veterans from OpenAI and Meta, according to the New York Times. Not much else is known about Project Prometheus. The company aims to build AI tools to be used in industries like aerospace and automotive, but there is no information yet on what exactly that would look like, where the company will be based, or when the venture was even started. The move marks Bezos' first operational role in a company since he abdicated the throne at Amazon to current CEO Andy Jassy in 2021. Bezos has held several other founder positions since then, like at his space company Blue Origin, which shot Katy Perry into orbit earlier this year, but he has not worked as a chief executive in a few years and has largely been living the life of a retiree. Although his recent personal focus has mostly been the final frontiers of space, Bezos has kept up with the AI hype. Early last year, the multibillionaire invested millions of dollars into Perplexity, an AI company that is after Google's search engine domination. At a conference last month, Bezos talked about his vision for sending data centers into space, and called artificial intelligence an "industrial bubble" that is not a bad thing, maybe even "good." Bezos's latest venture into the AI world is coming at a time when the AI industry is presenting a renewed interest in physical AI. Industry titan Nvidia put physical AI front and center at the company's latest GTC conference in Washington, D.C., last month. Meanwhile, Meta's top AI scientist, Yann LeCun, is reportedly quitting soon to build his own AI startup that would focus on "world models" instead of large language models. World models make up the basis of physical AI. This isn't the first physical AI venture for Bezos himself, either. The tech executive invested in AI robotics startup Physical Intelligence late last year. Underlying this recent push towards physical AI in an industry that has been dominated by LLMs in the recent past is a growing fear that improvements in AI capabilities are plateauing. Those fears have never been more openly discussed than after OpenAI’s highly anticipated GPT-5 announcement earlier this year was largely deemed a flop by fans. With AI investments continuing to skyrocket, the industry could be looking into physical AI for a much-needed re-injection of hype.

Jeff Bezos takes co-CEO role at secretive AI startup Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos is a startup CEO again. The Amazon founder is co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a new AI startup that has raised $6.2 billion in funding, according to The New York Times, making it one of the most well-funded early stage AI companies. The move represents Bezos' return to an operational executive role for the first time since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in 2021. He is "founder" at Blue Origin, his Kent, Wash.-based space company, but the role at Project Prometheus reflects his desire to engage more directly. There are few public details about the company. Its LinkedIn page offers a simple description: "AI for the physical economy." Bezos is also an investor in the company. The startup already has about 100 employees and is targeting computers, automobiles, and aerospace, according to the Times. Its headquarters location is unknown. Bezos will lead the company with fellow co-CEO and co-founder Vik Bajaj, a life sciences veteran who previously worked on research efforts at Alphabet's "moonshot" unit Google X. Bajaj is managing director at Foresite Capital Management and also co-founder and a director at Xaira Therapeutics, a biotech startup with offices in Seattle. Given Bezos' existing ties to Amazon (as founder and largest individual shareholder), there could be potential collaboration between the Seattle tech giant and Project Prometheus. For example, Amazon could serve as a potential customer, R&D partner, or infrastructure provider for Prometheus's AI-for-engineering ambitions. The startup could also benefit from Amazon's existing logistics, robotics and operational systems experience. During a recent fireside chat at Italian Tech Week 2025 in Turin, Bezos acknowledged signs of an AI "industrial bubble" -- but also said the technology will bring massive benefits to society. "When the dust settles and you see who are the winners, society benefits from those inventions. ... The benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic," he said.

Bezos AI Project Prometheus has a massive $6.2 billion arsenal

It targets manufacturing systems across computing, vehicles, and aerospace sectors Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is preparing to return to an operational role through Project Prometheus, a startup that will apply artificial intelligence to industrial manufacturing. The move marks Bezos' first formal leadership position since leaving the Amazon helm in 2021, even though he has remained active in areas linked to Blue Origin, his space rocketry business. Project Prometheus has already accrued close to one hundred employees, drawing from groups such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta, and has attracted substantial attention due to its scale and hiring strategy. Reports indicate Project Prometheus aims to operate in sectors where computing systems, vehicles, and aerospace equipment demand complex engineering processes. It enters the market with $6.2 billion in investment, placing it among the stronger early-stage ventures by available capital, and Bezos will be serving as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, a scientist with previous experience at Google X and Verily. Their joint role suggests an attempt to blend financial influence with technical supervision. Although the startup has not released a detailed roadmap, the available information points toward a plan to integrate AI tools into heavy industrial workflows. The company claims the approach will support the design and production of advanced hardware, including systems that rely on CPUs and GPUs for high-load computing tasks. The organization is moving into a sector that already hosts numerous players pursuing similar ambitions. Large technology companies have expanded their artificial intelligence research, while newer entrants continue to appear with narrower specialties. Project Prometheus has kept a low profile, offering limited clarity on its geographic base or long-term operational framework. Its focus on cars, computers, and spacecraft links it with fields where automation and simulation have become standard. The strategy fits with Bezos's long-running interest in space travel, yet the company has not provided public confirmation of timelines, partnerships, or manufacturing goals. That said, the scale of funding raises questions about the expectations driving the project. A venture of this size will face scrutiny if it fails to show measurable outcomes within reasonable timeframes. The presence of high-profile hires may create pressure to demonstrate progress rapidly, even though complex engineering projects typically move slowly. As of the time of writing, it is unclear how much of the current plan reflects technical feasibility as opposed to ambition. Via The Verge

Jeff Bezos reportedly launches new AI startup with himself as CEO

Former Amazon CEO to co-head Project Prometheus with tech executive Vik Bajaj, according to the New York Times After stepping down as Amazon's CEO four years ago, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder and former chief executive of the online shopping company, is going to be a CEO again. This time, Bezos has appointed himself co-CEO of an AI startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources. The startup, which will focus on developing AI for engineering and manufacturing in various fields, has already received $6.2bn in funding - more than many companies are able to raise in their lifetimes. Leading the company alongside Bezos is his co-founder and co-CEO Vik Bajaj, a celebrity tech executive in his own right. Bajaj is a physicist and chemist best known for his work at Google's moonshot factory, X, where he founded the health startup Verily. It's unclear how long the company has existed, but Project Prometheus has already hired 100 employees, poaching several from firms like OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, according to the Times. Little else is known about the project, as Bezos did not disclose where the company will be based or how its technology might function. The world's third-richest person has been closely involved at his aerospace company Blue Origin for several years as its founder and sole shareholder, but becoming a CEO again will be the first formal role Bezos has taken since stepping down from Amazon. Bezos and Bajaj join a crowded AI marketplace where billions of dollars are being poured into competitors like OpenAI and billions more are being spent to support the rapid development of AI models. More experts are beginning to question the financial sustainability of the AI industry, though. Michael Burry, best known for accurately predicting the 2008 housing crisis, recently invested $1bn in bets that Palantir and Nvidia shares will fall just days after he accused some of the big tech firms of using accounting tricks to "artificially boost earnings".

Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion -- and himself as co-CEO -- behind a new AI startup. Bubble? That's no trouble | Fortune

AI bubble talk continues to fizz, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos -- one of the world's richest people -- doesn't seem bothered by the mounting foam. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Bezos has helped fund a new AI startup called Project Prometheus, which -- with $6.2 billion in backing -- would make it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world. Notably, as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who previously worked at [hotlink]Google,[/hotlink] X, the company's "Moonshot Factory," Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company for the first time since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. According to the article, the company is focusing on AI-powered engineering and manufacturing in areas including computers, aerospace and automobiles, and has poached researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta. According to someone familiar with Project Prometheus' work, the startup seeks to apply AI to physical tasks, which requires systems that can learn not just from massive amounts of digital data, like LLMs do, but from real-world trial and error. Still, even in the high-flying, multi-billion-dollar AI startup space, the competition is fierce: Besides the billions poured into the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI, former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's Thinking Machines raised $2 billion earlier this year, while former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has raised $3 billion for his research startup, Safe Superintelligence. Then there is Paris-based Mistral, which closed a Series C of about $2 billion in September, and even You.com's Richard Socher is rumored to be trying to raise $1 billion for a new research lab. Bezos, of course, has more than enough Benjamins to lead in this bubbly AI landscape. He has also clarified that while he admits that an AI bubble exists, it's not the same as the dot-com boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when around $5 trillion in market value evaporated. "This is a kind of industrial bubble, as opposed to financial bubbles," he said at Italian Tech Week last month. Ultimately, industrial bubbles can be positive, Bezos added, pointing out that the biotech and pharmaceutical bubble in the 1990s led to the development of life-saving drugs -- though in the process, many public companies that IPO'd during the boom went bankrupt or were acquired at a fraction of their starting value by the end. But, Bezos said industrial bubbles are "not nearly as bad" as other bubbles. "It can even be good, because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, societies benefit from those investors," Bezos said. "That is what is going to happen here too. This is real, the benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic." Bezos, who also invested last year in Physical Intelligence, a robotics AI start-up, is clearly betting that this industrial AI bubble will pay off big. But in the world of AI, even $6.2 billion isn't enough to pop the champagne -- at least not yet. Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today's newsletter.Subscribe here. - TPG Rise Climate agreed to acquire a majority stake in PikeCorporation, a Charlotte, N.C.-based provider of turnkey infrastructure engineering and construction solutions for the electrical grid. Financial terms were not disclosed. - Cloudflare agreed to acquire Replicate, a San Francisco-based platform designed to make it easier for developers to deploy and run AI models. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Jeff Bezos launches industrial AI startup Project Prometheus

The 10 best Saturday Night Live sketches starring Will Ferrell According to reporting in The New York Times, Bezos has quietly stepped into his first formal operating role since leaving Amazon in 2021, serving as co-chief executive of a new venture called Project Prometheus, a still-semi-stealth AI startup aimed at the engineering and manufacturing heart of the economy. The company has already raised about $6.2 billion in funding, some of it from Bezos himself, instantly putting it among the best-financed early-stage AI outfits in the world.

Jeff Bezos is reportedly launching a €5 billion AI start-up

The founder of Amazon and Blue Origin is stepping into his first operational role at a company since 2021 at AI start-up Project Prometheus, according to a report. Jeff Bezos is officially entering the artificial intelligence (AI) race as co-CEO of a new AI start-up called Project Prometheus, according to a report in the New York Times. The company has already secured $6.2 billion (€5.3 billion) in funding, partly from Bezos, according to three anonymous sources close to the project. This would make it one of the most well-financed early-stage start-ups in the world. If confirmed, it would mark Bezos' first operational role in a company since stepping down as chief executive of Amazon in 2021. The billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin has already shown interest in AI. Last year, he invested in Physical Intelligence, a start-up using AI to power robots. Elon Musk, who founded his own AI firm xAI, responded to the news by calling his rival a "copycat" in a post on his social media platform X. Not much public information is available about Project Prometheus so far, including where the company will be based. The start-up's LinkedIn page is mostly blank, listing 51-200 employees and the tagline "AI for the physical economy". The start-up has already hired nearly 100 employees, according to the New York Times report, including researchers from top AI companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. The three sources who spoke to the paper added that Project Prometheus will focus on applying AI to physical tasks, including robotics, drug design, and scientific discovery - in the vein of companies such as California-based Periodic Labs. Instead of analysing data as large language models (LLMs) do, these companies want to build AI systems that can learn from the physical world through trial and error. Bezos' co-founder and co-CEO at Project Prometheus is Vik Bajaj, who updated his LinkedIn profile with both titles. He listed the job as being in San Francisco, London, and Zurich. The physicist and chemist previously worked with Google's X research team, producing services like Wing drone delivery and Waymo autonomous vehicles. He is also one of the founders of Foresite Labs, an incubator for AI and data science start-ups.

Jeff Bezos Launches Project Prometheus, a Billion-Dollar Push Into Industrial AI | AIM

Project Prometheus has reportedly raised about $6.2 billion in early funding, with Bezos contributing to the investment. Former Amazon chief Jeff Bezos is returning to an active leadership role as he takes the helm of a newly formed AI startup, Project Prometheus. He will serve as co-chief executive officer, marking his first major operational post since stepping down as Amazon's CEO in 2021, according to a report by The New York Times. Project Prometheus has reportedly raised about $6.2 billion in early funding, with Bezos contributing to the investment. The startup is said to be building AI technologies aimed at manufacturing, engineering, and other physical-systems applications, spanning everything from computing and automotive work to aerospace. Project Prometheus is one of several companies concentrating on utilising AI for tangible applications, such as robotics, drug design, and scientific discovery. Bezos will co‐lead the venture alongside Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist previously affiliated with Google X and other advanced research labs. Last year, Bezos invested in Physical Intelligence, an AI robotics startup. The company's mission is to bring general-purpose AI into the physical world. Although many operational details remain undisclosed, including headquarters location and exact launch date, the startup is reported to have already hired roughly 100 employees drawn from leading AI organisations such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta Platforms. By taking on this new role, Bezos is entering a crowded AI market where big companies and young startups are competing to lead in physical-AI, robotics, and large-scale automation. The move also raises questions about how his well-known Amazon leadership style will fit into the faster, more flexible world of AI. The huge early funding makes Project Prometheus one of the best-backed AI startups to date, even as the industry faces pressure over proving real-world results, building sustainable business models, and attracting top talent. Whether Bezos's return to hands-on leadership will lead to major breakthroughs is still uncertain, but it highlights how veteran tech leaders are re-joining the race to shape the next era of AI.

Report: Startup co-led by Jeff Bezos raises $6.2B to develop 'AI for the physical economy' - SiliconANGLE

Report: Startup co-led by Jeff Bezos raises $6.2B to develop 'AI for the physical economy' Jeff Bezos has launched an artificial intelligence startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported today. The company is reportedly backed by $6.2 billion in funding from Bezos and other investors. It's unclear whom those other investors are, when Project Prometheus was founded or where it's headquartered. However, the Times' sources did divulge certain other details about the company. Project Prometheus is said to be jointly led by Bezos and serial entrepreneur Vik Bajaj, who both hold the title of co-chief executive officer. Bajaj is a scientist and entrepreneur who co-founded Alphabet's Verily healthcare unit in 2015. He went on to launch a life sciences startup incubator called Foresite Labs and Xaira Therapeutics Inc., a company that is using AI to speed up drug discovery. Bajaj reportedly left Foresite Labs "recently" to focus on Project Prometheus. Besides Bajaj and Bezos, the startup's team reportedly also includes about 100 employees. According to the Times, some of those employees are AI researchers poached from OpenAI Group PBC, Meta Platforms Inc. and Google DeepMind. Project Prometheus has reportedly stated that it's developing "AI for the physical economy." The Times' sources elaborated that the company is training AI models optimized to "help in engineering and manufacturing." The development effort is focused on use cases in the aerospace, automobile and information technology markets. The Times' sources said that Project Prometheus is taking a similar approach with its AI as Periodic Labs Inc., a venture-backed materials science startup. The latter company is using AI-powered robots to synthesize compounds. Furthermore, Periodic Labs intends to harness the data produced during its experiments to train AI models that can speed up material discovery. It's unclear whether Project Prometheus will likewise make discovering new materials a focus of its AI research. One of Period Labs' goals is to develop superconductors that can operate at higher temperatures. Such superconductors, which would make it possible to develop more power-efficient electronics, could have numerous applications in the markets where Project Prometheus reportedly plans to compete. Project Prometheus' focus on the aerospace sector raises the possibility it may seek to collaborate with Bezos' other venture, Blue Origin LLC. The latter company, which is developing reusable rockets, could benefit from AI tools capable of speeding up engineering tasks. Last week, the booster stage of a Blue Origin successfully returned to Earth for the first time. The SpaceX Corp. competitor is already using AI to automate some manual work. Securing regulatory approval for a space launch involves processing thousands of pages worth of technical documentation. In an August blog post, Amazon Web Services Inc. detailed that Blue Origin is using large language models hosted on its Amazon Bedrock service to speed up the workflow. There are many other engineering-related use cases to which Project Prometheus could seek to apply its AI. Autodesk Inc., for example, has developed neural networks that automatically generate new variations of an existing component design. Engineers can customize details such as the materials those variants should incorporate. Startups are using AI to streamline not only component design but also the subsequent manufacturing phase. CaDDi Inc., which raised funding in March, has developed an AI platform that can analyze a component's blueprints and automatically identify suppliers capable of producing it. Project Prometheus' entry into the AI market could prompt rivals such as OpenAI to increase their focus on the engineering automation segment. It's believed the latter company has already started taking steps in that direction. In September, Wired reported that OpenAI is recruiting researchers to a team that is developing AI models for robots.

Jeff Bezos to co-lead AI startup Project Prometheus, raising $6.2 billion

The company, called Project Prometheus, has garnered $6.2 billion in funding, partly from the Amazon founder, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, the report said, citing three people familiar with the company. This is the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as the CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is involved in Blue Origin, his official title at the space firm is founder. With the new startup, Bezos is entering a crowded AI market with several smaller firms attempting to break through with new software and products while in a race with industry mainstays such as the Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Meta, and Google.

NYT: Jeff Bezos co-CEO of new AI venture Project Prometheus

Project Prometheus is already backed with $6.2bn, partly funded by Bezos, reports the New York Times. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and one of the world's wealthiest men with a net worth of $256bn, is set to become the co-CEO of a new AI venture called Project Prometheus, reports the New York Times. According to the publication, Project Prometheus will apply AI to physical tasks, including in robotics, drug development and scientific discoveries. The company will focus on AI that assists engineering and manufacturing in a number of sectors, including in computers, aerospace and automobiles. The New York Times reports that Project Prometheus is already backed with $6.2bn, partly funded by Bezos. Vik Bajaj, the company's co-founder, will be leading the company as co-CEO alongside Bezos. Bajaj, a physicist and chemist, was previously the chief scientific officer (CSO) at Google Life Sciences, the chair and CSO at Verily and held a number of academic positions at University of California, Berkley and Stanford University's School of Medicine. More recently, Bajaj led Foresite Labs as its co-founder and CEO. He left the company to start this new project with Bezos, sources told the publication. According to Project Prometheus' LinkedIn page, Nal Kalchbrenner, an angel investor and a former research scientist with Google, is listed as the company's founding member of technical staff. Moreover, sources say that the company has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta. Although, it is unclear when Project Prometheus was founded and where it will be based. Bezos' new venture is one among a growing list of companies attempting to tackle AI for physical tasks. Earlier this year, several former researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large AI projects left to start a new venture called Periodic Labs, which also focuses on accelerating scientific discoveries. Last year, the Amazon founder also invested in a start-up applying AI to robots, called Physical Intelligence. Meanwhile, Amazon's new operations technologies Blue Jay and Project Eluna are furthering the company's venture into utilising physical AI. Also, in a recent earnings call, SoftBank chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto referenced taking "bold steps" into physical AI with the acquisition of ABB Robotics for around $5.4bn, as well as with its continued investments into OpenAI and Arm. Project Prometheus is Bezos' first formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021. Though he is strongly involved with space-tech company Blue Origin as its founder. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news. Jeff Bezos. Image: Daniel Oberhaus via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Jeff Bezos is reportedly becoming a CEO again -- and it's for a $6.2 billion AI startup called 'Project Prometheus' | Fortune

Bezos is making a comeback as co-CEO, to be exact: alongside Vik Bajaj, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as co-CEO and co-founder of Project Prometheus. Bajaj is a former director of GoogleX, the so-called "Moonshot Factory," where he worked closely with Google co-founder Sergey Brin on efforts including the self-driving car that became Waymo. The Times reported that the new startup has $6.2 billion in funding, including some from Bezos himself. With a very low profile, details about the startup are hard to find, including when it was founded and where it will be based. According to the Times, it will focus on AI to support engineering and manufacturing in fields such as computers, aerospace, and automobiles, indicating that it will be closely involved with Bezos' other startup, the commercial space exploration company Blue Origin. Project Prometheus is still in stealth mode, but its focus is emerging: the practical application of AI to manufacturing and engineering across computing, automotive, and aerospace sectors. The name, drawn from Greek mythology, refers to the Titan who brought fire to humanity -- symbolizing both inspiration and potential peril, themes at the heart of ongoing global debates about artificial intelligence's risks and rewards. Bezos' recent predictions and public statements about AI indicate that he is plowing through concerns about a bubble in the space and still sees significant room for tech to reshape everyday life. Bezos's vision for the future extends beyond just developing smarter AI. Recently, while speaking at Italian Tech Week 2025, he remarked, "In the next kind of couple of decades, I believe there will be millions of people living in space ... That's how fast this is going to accelerate," emphasizing that advanced robotics and AI will enable not just off-planet living, but also new forms of labor and creativity. Bezos told the audience, "If you need to do some work on the surface of the moon or anywhere else, we will be able to send robots to do that work, and that will be much more cost-effective than sending humans." Project Prometheus seems to be part of this vision, working hand in hand with Blue Origin to realize Bezos' dreams of human expansion beyond Earth. As CEO of Amazon, Bezos championed a television program called The Expansethat was canceled by cable TV channel Syfy; it depicted a near future when humans would leave Earth to travel around the solar system. Bezos announced that Amazon Prime was saving the show onstage at the the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in 2022. Bezos' optimism stands in stark contrast to some more pessimistic narratives in technology circles. As Bezos put it in Italy this year, "Civilizational abundance comes from our inventions ... these tools increase our abundance, and that pattern will continue." The launch has already sparked debate about how artificial intelligence will shape the future -- not just on Earth, but, as Bezos and allies like Elon Musk and Sam Altman also predict, potentially across the solar system. The rise of Project Prometheus serves as a philosophical and technological statement, blending Bezos' relentless optimism about "civilizational abundance" and his conviction that AI can be a force for good. At the same tech conference in Turin, Bezos made headlines by saying that "There is an AI bubble." Still, he described it as an "industrial bubble" rather than a financial one, drawing parallels to the biotech bubble of the 1990s that, despite failures, ultimately yielded life-saving innovations. Bezos emphasized the long-term societal benefits of AI despite short-term market excesses, saying, "This is real, the benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic." He noted that during such bubbles, "everything gets funded," making it hard to distinguish good ideas from bad, which he said "is probably happening today" in AI investments. His optimism aligns with predictions of transformative change, stating, "AI is real, and it is going to change every industry." At the same conference, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon agreed that things look bubbly. "There will be a lot of capital that was deployed that didn't deliver returns," he said. "We just don't know how that will play out." Bezos is betting that he knows how things will play out.

Jeff Bezos is back as CEO and wants AI to manipulate atoms

Jeff Bezos has returned to a CEO role to lead a new engineering-focused AI startup, Project Prometheus, The New York Times reports. The company, which has reportedly secured a massive $6.2 billion in initial funding, aims to apply artificial intelligence to physical industries, including aerospace, automotive, and computing hardware. Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021, will serve as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, a physicist and former Google X executive known for his work at Verily Life Sciences. The startup's mission is to build "AI for the physical economy," focusing on systems that can learn from and manipulate the physical world rather than solely processing digital information like current chatbots. With offices planned for San Francisco, London, and Zurich, Project Prometheus has already recruited nearly 100 employees, including top talent from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. The company intends to develop models that accelerate scientific discovery and manufacturing processes, a goal that aligns closely with Bezos's long-standing interests in space exploration through his company Blue Origin. The $6.2 billion war chest makes Project Prometheus one of the best-funded early-stage startups in history, signaling a major push to compete in the rapidly evolving "physical AI" sector.

Jeff Bezos launches $9.5b AI start-up called Project Prometheus

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. San Francisco | Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence start-up that he will help manage as its co-CEO. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $US6.2 billion ($9.5 billion) in funding, partly from Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage start-ups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public.

Jeff Bezos creates AI startup where he will be co-CEO

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence startup that he will help manage as its co-CEO. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public. This is the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is deeply involved in Blue Origin, a competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX, his official title at the space company is founder. Since leaving Amazon, Bezos has received as much attention for his personal life as his businesses, including an extravagant celebrity-filled wedding in Venice this year. He has also become more closely involved in Blue Origin and has shown increasing interest in the race to build AI. His new company now firmly plants him in the middle of that competition. Project Prometheus is entering an increasingly crowded AI market, with smaller companies trying to carve out niches in a race with industry giants like Google, Meta and Microsoft and pioneering companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new company has until now kept a low profile, and when it was started is not even clear. Project Prometheus is focusing on technology that dovetails with Bezos' interest in taking people to space. The company is focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles. It is unclear where Project Prometheus will be based. Bezos' co-founder and co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory." Google X produced a wide range of ambitious projects, including Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving car that became Waymo. In 2015, Bajaj was among the founders of Verily, a research lab dedicated to the life sciences that, like Waymo and Wing, is operated by Google's parent company, Alphabet. Three years later, Bajaj cofounded and became CEO of Foresite Labs, an effort to incubate new AI and data science startups. He recently left that job to focus on Project Prometheus, according to the three people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Project Prometheus is among a wave of companies focused on applying AI to physical tasks, including robotics, drug design and scientific discovery. This year several prominent researchers left Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big AI projects to found a company called Periodic Labs, which is focused on building AItechnology that can accelerate new discoveries in areas like physics and chemistry. Last year, Bezos invested in Physical Intelligence, a startup that is applying AI to robots. But the $6.2 billion in funding behind Project Prometheus potentially gives it an advantage in the expensive race to build AI technologies. This year, Thinking Machines Lab, founded by a group of former OpenAI employees, raised $2 billion in funding. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from top AI companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, the three people said. A number of well-known AI companies -- including OpenAI, Google and Meta -- are already working on technologies meant to accelerate work in the physical sciences. Two researchers at Google DeepMind, the company's primary AI lab, recently won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on a project called AlphaFold, which can help accelerate drug discovery in small but important ways. Executives at these companies and others in the field often say that large language models -- the technologies that power chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT -- will soon achieve significant scientific breakthroughs. OpenAI and Meta say their technologies are already approaching this goal in areas like math and theoretical physics. But companies like Periodic Labs and now Project Prometheus aim to build AI models that learn in more complex ways than chatbots do. Large language models learn their skills by analyzing massive amounts of digital text. By pinpointing patterns in Wikipedia articles, news stories and other information culled from across the internet, these systems learn to mimic the way people put words together. They can even learn to write computer programs and solve math problems. The new companies are focusing on systems that can also learn from the physical world. Periodic Labs, which has $300 million in backing, plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will run scientific experiments on an enormous scale. By analyzing this physical trial and error, AI systems can learn to perform experiments largely on their own -- at least in theory. Project Prometheus will explore similar work, according to the people familiar with the company's plans.

Jeff Bezos Just Re-Entered the C-Suite With a $6 Billion AI Bet

Bajaj was previously the director of Alphabet's X, the name for the company's moonshot lab that experimented with novel technologies. X was known for zany projects, like experimenting with fly brains to create better neural networks or Project Loon, which beamed down internet signals from balloons in the stratosphere (it shuttered in 2021). But these projects rarely had a path to profitability. Bajaj left X in 2016 to found Verily, a health-tech startup also owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, Inc. According to the Times, Project Prometheus already has about 100 employees poached from companies like OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. It also marks Jeff Bezos's re-entrance into the C-Suite. The Amazon founder had stepped down from the company's chief executive position in 2021; Andy Jassy replaced him. A handful of companies are already experimenting with automating aspects of manufacturing. One of them, Atomic Industries -- founded by Austin Bishop, a notable figure in America's techno-industrial revival -- is building AI that helps design key factory components without the help of specialists. While it's still unclear what exactly Project Prometheus is doing, the Times reported that the firm has goals similar to Periodic Labs, a startup founded by former OpenAI researchers that uses LLMs to speed up scientific discovery.

Bezos Enters the AI Race With Project Prometheus and $6.2B Backing

* Project Prometheus is said to soon come out of stealth * It is reportedly operating in the physical AI space * Vik Bajaj will reportedly serve as the other co-CEO Jeff Bezos has reportedly founded a startup that is soon to emerge from stealth. As per the report, Bezos will take the role of co-Chief Executive Officer, making it his first operational role since 2021, when he stepped down as Amazon's CEO. The startup is reportedly called Project Prometheus, and it operates in the artificial intelligence (AI)-led engineering and manufacturing space across various domains, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles. The startup is reportedly in early stages but is said to be well-funded. Jeff Bezos Reportedly Creates New AI Startup According to The New York Times, Bezos is planning a return to an operational role with his new venture, Project Prometheus. The early-stage AI startup has raised $6.2 billion (roughly Rs. 55,000 crore) in funding, with the Amazon and Blue Origin founder contributing a portion, the publication claimed, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. Alongside Bezos, Vik Bajaj will be the other co-CEO. He has reportedly worked with Google's Moonshot Factory previously and has collaborated with Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin. Before this, he was working as the CEO of Foresite Labs, which also operated in the AI space. Project Prometheus is said to have about 100 employees, with several researchers being recruited from major AI companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. The LinkedIn page of the startup does not have a lot of information, but it is described as "AI for the physical economy." The term "physical economy" suggests the company wants to build AI that interacts more directly with the real world, not just digital systems, but machinery, robotics, and industrial processes. As per the report, there is no information on where Project Prometheus is based or when it was founded. However, based on sources, the report claims that it will soon be announced publicly, which will shed more light on its products and services. Notably, Bezos' fascination towards AI and its capabilities has been evident ever since the technology gained mainstream attention. The former Amazon CEO has spoken publicly multiple times about AI. Very recently, in a conversation with Ferrari and Stellantis Chairman John Elkann, Bezos discussed the possibility of using space satellites to harness the power of the Sun to fuel AI-led data processing. He highlighted that such clusters could be the norm in the next 10-20 years.

Jeff Bezos Is a CEO Again. Here's What His New $6B Project Is All About

His latest venture -- Project Prometheus -- has $6.2 billion in funding and about 100 employees, the Times said. The 61-year-old Amazon (AMZN) founder is once again leading a team that aims to develop the technology of tomorrow. Bezos will be co-CEO of Project Prometheus, an AI startup focused on manufacturing and engineering, in fields including computers, cars and aerospace,The New York Times reported Monday. Project Prometheus -- named for a Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods and shared it with humans -- has $6.2 billion in funding, including a contribution from Bezos, and about 100 staffers, the Times said. Bezos, the world's third-richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, hasn't been officially responsible for a company's operations since he gave up the CEO post at Amazon in 2021. Not much is widely known about Project Prometheus. What appears to be its LinkedIn page includes little beyond the tagline "AI for the physical economy." Its co-founder and co-CEO, Vik Bajaj, helped fund a life sciences lab at Alphabet (GOOG), worked on health and therapeutic endeavors and, most recently, led an AI and data science incubator, according to his LinkedIn profile. A la Elon Musk, Bezos has his hands in a number of other projects. Bezos as lately refocused the opinion section at The Washington Post, which he purchased a dozen years ago; and sent an all-female crew into space at Blue Origin, the aerospace company he founded. (Bezos also steers environmental and early education philanthropic groups.) Project Prometheus may build on Bezos' interest in space. Bezos argued at a tech conference that factories, data centers and other industrial operations should move to the moon or orbital facilities to mitigate pollution on earth. "The moon is a gift from the universe," Bezos said, according to The Wall Street Journal. Another tech titan, Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is also eyeing a Prometheus project -- a 1 gigawatt AI "supercluster" with a more down-to-earth location: New Albany, Ohio, according to Inc., an entrepreneur-focused news outlet.

Who is Vik Bajaj, co-CEO of Jeff Bezos' AI startup Project Prometheus?

The company, partly backed by Bezos, is launching with a huge fund of $6.2 billion, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage AI startups in the world, according to GuruFocus, a stocks research platform. Bajaj brings strong scientific and technical experience from his time at Google X, Verily, and Foresite Labs. Vikram Bajaj, aka Vik, has been named co-chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Project Prometheus, where he will lead alongside Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The company, partly backed by Bezos, is launching with a huge fund of $6.2 billion, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage AI startups in the world, according to GuruFocus, a stocks research platform. Bajaj brings strong scientific and technical experience from his time at Google X, Verily, and Foresite Labs. Who is Vik Bajaj? Vik Bajaj is a physicist and chemist, and is well-known in the tech world. His LinkedIn profile states that he cofounded Foresite Labs which aims to use AI to change the way new technologies are discovered, developed, and built. However, The New York Times reported that he recently left his role as CEO of Foresite Labs to join Project Prometheus. Before Foresite, Bajaj was chief scientific officer at GRAIL, a company focussed on early-stage cancer detection. He also cofounded Verily, under Alphabet, where too he was the chief scientific officer and chaired its Scientific Advisory Board. He also cofounded Xaira Therapeutics in January 2023 and continues to serve as its director and interim president, according to his LinkedIn profile. Foresite Capital's website notes that alongside his industry roles, he has also worked as an academic principal investigator and is currently an adjunct associate professor at Stanford University. Bajaj earned his PhD in physical chemistry from MIT, following his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. What is Project Prometheus? Project Prometheus is an AI startup aiming to develop artificial intelligence that learns from real-world physical processes, not just digital information. Its work focuses on areas such as aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and applied engineering. The company has not yet revealed details about its launch date or location. Even so, it has already hired around 100 employees, including top researchers from organisations such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta, according to people who spoke to the New York Times.

Jeff Bezos brings signature management style to $6 billion AI startup

Amazon founder and former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos honed his leadership philosophy running one of the world's largest companies. Now he's bringing his management skills to an artificial-intelligence startup with fewer than 100 employees. Project Prometheus, which Bezos co-founded with scientist Vik Bajaj, will use AI to accelerate engineering and manufacturing in fields like aerospace and automobiles, the New York Times reported. The startup has $6.2 billion in funding, sourced in part from Bezos himself, and employees counted in the dozens, some of whom were poached from leading AI labs like OpenAI and Google DeepMind. As co-CEO with Bajaj, Bezos is back in a formal executive post for the first time since stepping down from Amazon in 2021. He returns at a time when all the rules for managing companies seem to be in flux, as entrepreneurs like Tesla's Elon Musk, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Airbnb's Brian Chesky challenge conventional MBA wisdom about what good management looks like.

Jeff Bezos to co-lead AI startup in first operational role since Amazon

Jeff Bezos will take an active leadership role as co-chief executive officer of a new artificial intelligence startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported Monday (via Reuters). The company focuses on AI applications for engineering and manufacturing, including computers, automobiles, and spacecraft. With $6.2 billion in funding, Project Prometheus ranks among the most well-financed early-stage startups globally. This marks Bezos' first formal operational position since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. His co-CEO will be Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who previously worked with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the "Moonshot Factory" (X). Project Prometheus has already recruited nearly 100 employees, including researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. Bezos is entering a highly competitive AI market dominated by companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google, as well as numerous emerging startups. The firm aims to leverage cutting-edge AI to accelerate innovation in hardware and manufacturing processes.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos returns to CEO role with AI startup

Jeff Bezos is reportedly returning to hands-on leadership, serving as co-chief executive of a new AI firm called Project Prometheus. The venture, heavily funded, aims to use advanced AI to improve real-world engineering and manufacturing. It gathers top researchers and focuses on learning from physical experiments rather than text, pushing practical scientific innovation. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is returning to an operational leadership role for the first time in four years, taking the helm of a new AI venture with $6.2 billion in funding, a report said Monday. According to the New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, the company, dubbed Project Prometheus, will focus on applying AI to engineering and manufacturing in sectors including computers, aerospace and automobiles. Bezos will serve as co-chief executive alongside Vik Bajaj, a prominent Silicon Valley researcher who previously worked with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the tech giant's experimental X lab and co-founded life sciences research unit Verily. The role at the startup represents Bezos's first formal executive position since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. The billionaire has since devoted time to his aerospace company, Blue Origin, and made headlines for his personal life, including a star-studded wedding in Venice this year. Bezos has also more closely aligned himself with the Trump administration, attending the president's inauguration in January and ordering a pro-business revamp of the opinion page at the Washington Post, the news media outlet he owns. Project Prometheus enters a crowded AI market dominated by tech giants Google, Meta and Microsoft, alongside pioneering firms OpenAI and Anthropic. The company has already assembled nearly 100 employees, including researchers recruited from top AI labs, the Times reported. The venture is part of a broader trend toward applying AI to physical tasks, often using robotics. Unlike the generative AI technology behind ChatGPT, it aims to develop systems that learn from real-world experimentation, rather than just digital text, with the goal of accelerating scientific discovery in physics, chemistry and engineering.

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Launches AI Startup Project Prometheus | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The company, dubbed "Project Prometheus," is launching with $6.2 billion in financing, some of it from Bezos himself, the New York Times (NYT) reported Monday (Nov. 17), citing three sources familiar with the project. The report notes this is the first time Bezos has taken an official operational role in a company since leaving Amazon four years ago. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers recruited from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta, the sources said. The NYT says the company has thus far kept a low profile, and it's unclear when it was even started or where it will be based. According to the report, Project Prometheus is part of a wave of companies working to apply AI to physical tasks like robotics or drug design. This year saw the launch of Periodic Labs, a company founded by veterans of Meta, OpenAI, DeepMind and other major AI players, focused on developing AI that can boost discoveries in fields like chemistry and physics. That company plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will conduct scientific experiments on a massive scale. By examining these efforts, AI systems can, in theory, learn to carry out experiments largely on their own, the report added. Project Prometheus will delve into similar work, according to the sources familiar with the company's plans. The company is working on AI to assist in engineering and manufacturing in fields such as computers, automobiles and aerospace, aligning with Bezos' interest in space travel, the report added. Joining Bezos as co-founder/co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X. That project produced Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving vehicle that became Waymo. In other AI news, PYMNTS spoke recently with Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra for the "What's Next in Payments: The Year of the CEO" series. He characterized 2025 as the year in which CEOs came to terms with what artificial intelligence truly means for their companies. "Is it machine learning? Is it agents? Or is it generative AI? They're sort of connected," he said. "But people talk about them as very different blocks. Your ability to be either influenced, supported or disintermediated by any of these technologies is what's causing the biggest concern or opportunity for businesses."

Jeff Bezos gets a new job and is going to be CEO again. Elon Musk calls him 'copy cat'

Jeff Bezos is going to be CEO again and this time it is for a new AI startup Project Prometheus. Project Prometheus has secured a massive $6.2 billion in funding and aims to revolutionize manufacturing and engineering. His rival Elon Musk was quick enough to take a jibe at him and call him 'copy cat'. Tech billionaire Jeff Bezos is going to be CEO again. This time, Bezos has appointed himself co-CEO of an AI startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources. This comes almost four years after he stepped down as Amazon CEO. The startup will focus on developing AI for engineering and manufacturing in various fields and has already received $6.2 billion in funding. And this amount is much more than many companies are able to raise in their lifetimes. Leading the company alongside Jeff Bezos is his co-founder and co-CEO Vik Bajaj, a celebrity tech executive, who is a physicist and chemist best known for his work at Google's moonshot factory, X, where he founded the health startup Verily. Jeff Bezos will serve as co-chief executive (co-CEO) of Project Prometheus and this marks Bezos's first operational role since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. Project Prometheus is focusing on AI that is helping in engineering and manufacturing across multiple sectors and the startup has already hired 100 employees, poaching several from firms like OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, according to the Times. ALSO READ: Tamil Nadu weather: Are schools open or closed in Chennai today due to heavy rainfall? Check latest IMD update Project Prometheus's mission aligns with Bezos's longstanding interest in space exploration through Blue Origin, his rocket company that recently achieved a successful booster landing. Not much is known about Project Prometheus, as Bezos did not disclose where the company will be based or how its technology might function. The world's third-richest person has been closely involved at his aerospace company Blue Origin for several years as its founder and sole shareholder, but becoming a CEO again will be the first formal role Bezos has taken since stepping down from Amazon. Project Prometheus is part of a growing group of companies using AI for physical tasks such as robotics, drug development and scientific research. The company aims to build AI systems that learn from real-world experiments instead of relying only on digital data. This approach could give it an advantage in practical manufacturing. With $6.2 billion in funding, Project Prometheus has become one of the world's best-funded early-stage startups, overtaking the $2 billion raised by Thinking Machines Lab earlier this year. ALSO READ: Verizon layoffs: CEO Daniel Schulman's remarks about company's 'critical inflection point' emerge. Here's what he said Elon Musk took a swipe at Jeff Bezos on Monday after the Amazon founder returned to an operational role to lead a major new AI venture. Quote-tweeting a post announcing the move, Musk wrote, using emojis, "Haha no way, Copycat," reviving the long-running rivalry between the two billionaires. Jeff Bezos has drawn closer to the Trump administration in recent months, attending the president's inauguration in January and pushing a pro-business shift in the editorial direction of The Washington Post. Project Prometheus is entering an AI sector led by giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. Instead of using text-based training like generative AI models, the startup plans to develop systems that learn from real-world experiments. Its goal is to speed up breakthroughs in physics, chemistry and engineering. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

Jeff Bezos Returns With His $6.2 Billion AI Startup, Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos Reawakens in Tech With $6.2 Billion Prometheus AI Gamble Targeting Real-World Discovery Amazon Co-Founder, Jeff Bezos, is returning to an operational role for the first time since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in 2021. He is set to co-lead a new, ambitious artificial intelligence startup named Project Prometheus. It has become one of the most heavily funded early-stage ventures globally after raising a sum of $6.2 billion. Jeff Bezos's vision is still considered a company in stealth mode, and its bold objective is to develop AI well beyond text-generation.

Jeff Bezos Takes CEO Role at AI Startup Project Prometheus With $6.2 Billion in Funding

It's the first formal operational role for the tech giant since stepping down from Amazon in 2021. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is setting his sights on AI, taking on a new role heading up a new startup that will focus on developing the emerging technology for use in engineering and manufacturing. The tech industry giant will take the helm as co-chief executive officer along with co-founder Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who once worked on semi-secret research division of Google known as "The Moonshot Factory." They both will be heading up Project Prometheus, which already has a robust funding of $6.2 billion. It is the first formal operational role Mr. Bezos has taken with a company since stepping down as Amazon's CEO in 2021. During that time, he's taken interest in bolstering operations of Blue Origin, a direct competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Project Prometheus, which has mostly kept a low-profile, focuses on AI technology that coincides with Mr. Bezos' interest in sending people into outer space. The startup has already bolstered its staff with nearly 100 employees which include researchers that were poached from companies like OpenAI, Google's DeepMind, and Meta, according to a report from The New York Times. It is among a wave of companies that are turning their focus on applying AI to complete physical tasks like robotics, drug design, and scientific discovery. Their aim is to develop an AI platform that is able to learn in a more complex way. Currently, large language models develop their skills by analyzing massive amounts of digital text. Mr. Bezos has shown growing interest in juicing up AI's capabilities, investing last year in another start up named Physical Intelligence, which is working towards applying new AI models to robots. News of Mr. Bezos going all in on AI comes amid mounting concern that the industry is at prime risk of hitting a bubble, similar to previous tech booms, several Wall Street investors and economists have been warning that the pace and scale of investment in AI is quickly becoming unstable. Investors Steve Eisman and Michael Burry, who are infamous for betting against the housing market before the 2008 financial crisis, which was the inspiration for the 2015 movie, "The Big Short," have recently had a public disagreement about how Big Tech is accounting for massive spending on AI infrastructure. Mr. Burry has been posting on social media allegations that major cloud and AI infrastructure providers are acting as "hyperscalers" that are using aggressive accounting techniques to pad their profits. " Understating depreciation by extending useful life of assets artificially boosts earnings -one of the more common frauds of the modern era," he recently said on X. "Yet this is exactly what all the hyperscalers have done. By my estimates they will understate depreciation by $176 billion 2026-2028." "ORCL [Oracle] will overstate earnings 26.9%, META by 20.8%, etc. But it gets worse. More detail coming November 25th. Stay tuned." Mr. Eisman spoke out against Mr. Burry's claims on his podcast, "The Real Eisman Playbook" saying that AI Infrastructure spending is not a consequential as he has suggested. "Burry is arguing that the hyperscalers are artificially inflating their earnings simply by changing their depreciation schedules," he said. "I just don't think his concerns matter that much." "The big question as to AI spending is what kind of returns and cost savings these massive investments will or won't bring."

Jeff Bezos creates AI startup where he will be co-CEO

The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence startup that he will help manage as its co-CEO. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public. This is the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is deeply involved in Blue Origin, a competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX, his official title at the space company is founder. Since leaving Amazon, Bezos has received as much attention for his personal life as his businesses, including an extravagant celebrity-filled wedding in Venice this year. He has also become more closely involved in Blue Origin and has shown increasing interest in the race to build AI. His new company now firmly plants him in the middle of that competition. Project Prometheus is entering an increasingly crowded AI market, with smaller companies trying to carve out niches in a race with industry giants like Google, Meta and Microsoft and pioneering companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new company has until now kept a low profile, and when it was started is not even clear. Project Prometheus is focusing on technology that dovetails with Bezos' interest in taking people to space. The company is focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles. It is unclear where Project Prometheus will be based. Bezos' co-founder and co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory." Google X produced a wide range of ambitious projects, including Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving car that became Waymo. In 2015, Bajaj was among the founders of Verily, a research lab dedicated to the life sciences that, like Waymo and Wing, is operated by Google's parent company, Alphabet. Three years later, Bajaj cofounded and became CEO of Foresite Labs, an effort to incubate new AI and data science startups. He recently left that job to focus on Project Prometheus, according to the three people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Project Prometheus is among a wave of companies focused on applying AI to physical tasks, including robotics, drug design and scientific discovery. This year several prominent researchers left Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big AI projects to found a company called Periodic Labs, which is focused on building AItechnology that can accelerate new discoveries in areas like physics and chemistry. Last year, Bezos invested in Physical Intelligence, a startup that is applying AI to robots. But the $6.2 billion in funding behind Project Prometheus potentially gives it an advantage in the expensive race to build AI technologies. This year, Thinking Machines Lab, founded by a group of former OpenAI employees, raised $2 billion in funding. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from top AI companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, the three people said. A number of well-known AI companies -- including OpenAI, Google and Meta -- are already working on technologies meant to accelerate work in the physical sciences. Two researchers at Google DeepMind, the company's primary AI lab, recently won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on a project called AlphaFold, which can help accelerate drug discovery in small but important ways. Executives at these companies and others in the field often say that large language models -- the technologies that power chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT -- will soon achieve significant scientific breakthroughs. OpenAI and Meta say their technologies are already approaching this goal in areas like math and theoretical physics. But companies like Periodic Labs and now Project Prometheus aim to build AI models that learn in more complex ways than chatbots do. Large language models learn their skills by analyzing massive amounts of digital text. By pinpointing patterns in Wikipedia articles, news stories and other information culled from across the internet, these systems learn to mimic the way people put words together. They can even learn to write computer programs and solve math problems. The new companies are focusing on systems that can also learn from the physical world. Periodic Labs, which has $300 million in backing, plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will run scientific experiments on an enormous scale. By analyzing this physical trial and error, AI systems can learn to perform experiments largely on their own -- at least in theory. Project Prometheus will explore similar work, according to the people familiar with the company's plans.

What is Project Prometheus, whose co-CEO will be Jeff Bezos? 10 points for you to know

Project Prometheus: Jeff Bezos is back in an operational role with his new artificial intelligence venture, Project Prometheus. The company has launched with a substantial $6.2 billion war chest. Project Prometheus aims to develop AI that learns from real-world processes, targeting sectors like aerospace and manufacturing. It is co-led by Vik Bajaj and has recruited top talent from leading AI firms. Project Prometheus: Jeff Bezos is returning to an operational role with his new artificial intelligence venture, Project Prometheus, marking a major step into the rapidly growing field of AI, as per a report. The company is launching with a $6.2 billion war chest, partly funded by Bezos himself, making it one of the most heavily backed early-stage AI startups anywhere, as per a GuruFocus report. Here's what you need to know about Project Prometheus, as per the GuruFocus report: After leaving Amazon in 2021 to focus on Blue Origin and personal projects, Bezos is now taking a hands-on role at Prometheus, signaling a renewed push into frontier technology, as per the GuruFocus report. Prometheus is aiming to develop AI that can learn from real-world processes rather than only digital data, targeting areas like aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and applied engineering, as per the report. ALSO READ: Economic data is back following government reopening - here are the key events this week The company is co-led by Vik Bajaj, who brings experience from Google X, Verily, and Foresite Labs, giving Prometheus strong scientific and technical expertise, as per the GuruFocus report. Prometheus has recruited nearly 100 employees, including researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta, showing early ambition in assembling a world-class team, as per the GuruFocus report. The startup enters a space where major players like Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic are advancing scientific computing and AI research, as per the report. ALSO READ: Retirement age: Is 63 the perfect age to retire? Here's what to know While large language models primarily focus on text and problem-solving in math and physics, Prometheus is targeting AI systems that learn through robotics, experimentation, and real-world trial-and-error, as per the GuruFocus report. The company's approach may offer opportunities for investors, as AI that interacts directly with physical processes could unlock breakthroughs in scientific discovery, robotics, and applied engineering, as per the GuruFocus report. The launch comes at a time when physical-world AI is accelerating, positioning Prometheus in a growing and competitive segment of the AI market,as per the report. Prometheus is part of a broader movement of startups, such as Periodic Labs and Thinking Machines Lab, that focus on AI-driven research and robotics in the physical world, as per the GuruFocus report. With its massive funding, top-tier talent, and operational leadership by Bezos, Project Prometheus is positioning itself as a key player in the evolving AI landscape, aiming to combine scientific exploration with practical, real-world applications, as per the report. Who is leading Project Prometheus? Jeff Bezos is co-CEO, alongside Vik Bajaj, as per the GuruFocus report. How much funding does Prometheus have? The company launched with $6.2 billion in funding, partly contributed by Jeff Bezos himself, as per the GuruFocus report. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

Jeff Bezos to co-lead AI startup in first operational role since Amazon, NYT reports

(Reuters) -Jeff Bezos will serve as co-chief executive officer of a new artificial intelligence startup that focuses on AI for engineering and manufacturing of computers, automobiles and spacecraft, the New York Times reported on Monday. The company, called Project Prometheus, has garnered $6.2 billion in funding, partly from the Amazon founder, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, the report said, citing three people familiar with the company. This is the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as the CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is involved in Blue Origin, his official title at the space firm is founder. With the new startup, Bezos is entering a crowded AI market with several smaller firms attempting to break through with new software and products while in a race with industry mainstays such as the Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Meta and Google. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Bezos and a representative did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Bezos' co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory," the report said. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers from top AI firms such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, according to the Times. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)