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.