Skild AI Announces $300 Million Funding From Jeff Bezos, Softbank To Build ‘Robot Brains’
Artificial intelligence firm Skild AI recently came out of hiding, reporting the completion of a $300 million series funding round with participation from Jeff Bezos and SoftBank, among others.
Skild AI is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off focused on building AI systems called “general purpose brains” for a variety of machines and robotics.
According to the company's blog post, the fund raised $1.5 billion and was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, SoftBank Group and Jeff Bezos (of Bezos Expeditions). It also saw participation from Phyllis Ventures, Sequoia, Mello Ventures, General Catalyst, CRV, Amazon, SV Angel and Carnegie Mellon University.
Artificial intelligence brain
Skild AI represents the latest unicorn to enter the AI space with the ambitious goal of developing “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI), joining OpenAI, Anthropic AI, xAI and countless other organizations working to develop human-level AI.
However, it is important to note that AGI is a buzzword with no scientific meaning. There is no consensus among scientists or engineers on what exactly spells the difference between a powerful AI system and a true AGI system.
So far, AGI remains a theory. As far as we know, the scientific method has not yet produced any evidence that AGI is a fundamental possibility.
In addition to breaking the AGI barrier, Skild AI seems to be trying to make its way into ground floor robot operating systems.
According to a blog post, Skilled AI's long-term goal is to develop a modular artificial “brain” that can be used in any home that meets its power and connectivity requirements. Details on how this product/service will be developed are still scarce.
Jeff Bezos relationship
The Series A funding announcement did not provide any specifics regarding the company's roadmaps or partnerships. However, we can imagine that Jeff Bezos or Amazon could work with the company by jointly participating in the funding round.
Other companies that specialize in robotics, such as Boston Dynamics, that aren't already in the business of creating human-level AI systems to power them, could serve as complementary business partners.
In pure speculation, we can imagine that the development of an AI brain will involve massive infrastructure similar to that necessary for the development of OpenAI's ChatGPT and xAI's Grok. That puts chipmakers like Nvidia and AMD at the top of the company's list, but there's also the Jeff Bezos and Amazon connection.
Amazon owns the massive GPU cluster used to train its Bedrock AI system, and Amazon Web Services is arguably the most popular cloud services platform in the world.
Related: Hackers demand SEC probe OpenAI over illegal NDAs
