OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's safety AI startup SSI has raised $1 billion, with participation from a16z and others

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Reuters, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised $1 billion in cash to help develop safe artificial intelligence systems that far exceed human capabilities. SSI currently has 10 employees and plans to use the funds to purchase computing power and hire top talent. The company will focus on assembling a small team of researchers and engineers based in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

The company declined to disclose its valuation, but insiders say it is valued at $5 billion. Investors include top venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and SV Angel. The investment partnership NFDG, operated by Nat Friedman and SSI CEO Daniel Gross, is also involved.

Gross stated in an interview, "For us, it is important to have investors who understand, respect, and support our mission, which is to directly enter safe superintelligence, especially spending years on R&D before bringing products to market." SSI indicated that it plans to collaborate with cloud providers and chip companies to fund its computing power needs, but has not yet decided which companies to partner with.