Jeff Bezos’s new artificial intelligence company, Project Prometheus, is raising tens of billions of dollars to acquire businesses potentially disrupted by the technology, betting on the transformative impact the Amazon founder anticipates for the industrial sector, according to reports.
Project Prometheus, the working name for a new venture led by Bezos and former Google executive Vikram Bajaj, secured $6.2 billion in funding as recently as late last year.
The capital, which includes investment from Arch Venture Partners founder Robert Nelsen, is intended to support Prometheus’s efforts to leverage artificial intelligence to overhaul industrial production and manufacturing processes.
According to recent reporting from the Financial Times, the group is also in discussions for a new funding round for a holding company that would invest in businesses Bezos and Bajaj foresee being impacted by their technology.
This new holding company is envisioned as a “vehicle for transforming industrial production,” and would have access to tens of billions of dollars to acquire businesses, sources familiar with the plan said.
Prometheus is in preliminary talks with several major sovereign wealth funds, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, regarding investments in the holding company. The name “Prometheus” references the titan in Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity.
Project Prometheus’s Core Objective
Prometheus aims to build new AI systems that head beyond large language models (LLMs), with the ability to map the real world and understand design and engineering processes.
The company is targeting the complex manufacturing processes behind products ranging from aircraft engines to computer chips, with the goal of making them faster and more resource-efficient. The move reflects a growing trend of investment in AI-driven industrial automation.
To begin training its AI systems, the company has already acquired data from these industries.
Bezos is co-CEO – his first leadership role of this kind since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in 2021 – and is actively involved in day-to-day operations, according to people familiar with the situation.
Bezos’s New Company Has Recruited Talent From OpenAI and Google DeepMind
The company has hired over 100 employees, including specialists from OpenAI, DeepMind (Google) and Meta, whose technical expertise spans areas such as large language models, computer vision, weather forecasting, and optimization of advanced chips for physics simulations. Prometheus is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in London and Zurich.
The AI lab has also begun recruiting engineers near New Delhi to create precise 3D models of components used in manufacturing equipment like engines, sources familiar with the company’s plans said.
“Discovering how to reinvent the physical world is a major challenge,” said financier Robert Nelsen, who has taken on a director role at Prometheus, speaking at a JPMorgan Chase bank-hosted summit last month. “But the pace of innovation in artificial intelligence right now is truly hard to underestimate,” he added.
Nelsen also stated that he believes Prometheus will become “one of the most vital companies in the world.”
