OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Protected Superintelligence (SSI), is utilizing Google Cloud’s TPU chips to energy its AI analysis, a part of a brand new partnership the businesses introduced on Wednesday in a press launch.
Google Cloud says SSI is utilizing TPUs to “speed up its analysis and growth efforts towards constructing a protected, superintelligent AI.”
Cloud suppliers are chasing a handful of unicorn AI startups that spend tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on computing energy yearly to coach AI basis fashions. SSI’s take care of Google Cloud suggests the previous will spend a big chunk of its computing finances with Google Cloud; a supply acquainted tells iinfoai that Google Cloud is SSI’s major computing supplier.
Google Cloud has a historical past of putting computing offers with its former AI researchers, lots of whom at the moment are operating billion-dollar AI startups. (Sutskever as soon as labored at Google.) In October, Google Cloud mentioned it might be the first computing supplier for World Labs, based by ex-Google Cloud AI chief scientist Fei-Fei Li.
It’s unclear if SSI has struck partnerships with different cloud or computing suppliers. A Google Cloud spokesperson declined to remark. A Protected Superintelligence spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
SSI got here out of stealth in June 2024, months after Sutskever departed from his position as OpenAI’s chief scientist. The corporate has $1 billion in backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST World, SV Angel, and others.
Since SSI’s launch, we’ve heard comparatively little concerning the startup’s actions. On its web site, SSI says that growing protected, superintelligent AI techniques is “our mission, our identify, and our total product roadmap, as a result of it’s our sole focus.” Sutskever beforehand mentioned that he had recognized “a brand new mountain to climb” and is investigating new methods to enhance the efficiency of frontier AI fashions.
Earlier than co-founding OpenAI, Sutskever spent a number of years at Google Mind researching neural networks. After main OpenAI’s AI security work for years, Sutskever performed a key position within the ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. Sutskever later joined an worker motion to reinstate Altman as CEO.
After the ordeal, Sutskever reportedly wasn’t seen at OpenAI’s places of work for months, and finally left the startup to begin SSI.
