Nvidia has invested billions of dollars in Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), the AI company founded by Ilya Sutskever, the former OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist who famously clashed with CEO Sam Altman. The investment, reported at $5 billion, marks one of the largest single bets on an AI safety-focused startup.
SSI announced the “long-term strategic partnership” with Nvidia on July 27, stating the deal would allow the company to “10x our compute in the next 12 months.” In a post on X, the company declared: “We reached the point where our research is worth scaling.”
Sutskever left OpenAI in May 2024 after a boardroom battle that briefly ousted Altman. He subsequently founded SSI with a singular mission: building AI systems that are not just powerful but provably safe. The company has operated largely in stealth mode, but the Nvidia investment suggests its research has reached a significant milestone.
The $5 billion figure places SSI among the best-funded AI startups, though still behind OpenAI and Anthropic in total capital raised. What makes the deal unusual is Nvidia’s role as both investor and hardware supplier — the chipmaker is effectively betting on SSI’s approach to AI safety while providing the computing infrastructure needed to pursue it.
Nvidia’s investment in SSI also signals the chip giant’s deepening entanglement in the AI ecosystem beyond hardware sales. The company has been involved in multiple deals reportedly worth over $750 billion in total, raising concerns among some investors about financial complexity and inter-company relationships.
For Sutskever, the Nvidia partnership validates his post-OpenAI vision. As one of the pioneers of deep learning and a vocal advocate for AI safety, his new venture with Nvidia’s backing could reshape how the industry approaches the challenge of building powerful AI systems that remain under human control.
Source: The Verge
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