DeepMind alumni reportedly seek hundreds of millions for AI startups
Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the plans, reports that Nando de Freitas is in talks to raise at least $100 million initially for Revolution Labs, a startup set to focus on diffusion models—an alternative to the transformer technology behind large language models.
TLDR
Bloomberg reports that former Google DeepMind researchers are attracting investor interest, with many pursuing AI technology beyond large language models. Citing people familiar with the plans, it says Nando de Freitas is in talks to raise at least $100 million initially for Revolution Labs.
Other funding is already secured: David Silver raised around $1 billion for Ineffable Intelligence. Emulate, meanwhile, is in discussions to raise $700 million for systems to simulate and predict the real world, Bloomberg reports.
Separately, The Decoder reports that Robert O'Callahan quit DeepMind over AI risks. He worked on chip design tools that helped make AI cheaper and faster, a contribution he says he can no longer justify. He calls the risk from superintelligent AI "real but uncertain" and says aiming for it in the near future is "inherently irresponsible."