Safe Superintelligence (SSI) is three months old and has yet to release a product. The fundraising values the company at around US$5 billion, sources told Reuters. Prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz participated. SSI plans to use the money to acquire computing power and hire new staff. (Reuters)

Talking point: The large funding round demonstrates investors are still willing to make big bets on AI in the right circumstances, despite mounting concerns the sector could be overheated. Sutskever unveiled the firm in June, which he co-founded with former OpenAI researcher Daniel Levy and tech investor Daniel Gross. Sutskever, a Canadian who studied under Geoffrey Hinton, participated in the short-lived ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and is known for his concerns about AI’s potential risks to humanity. Gross told Reuters that SSI, based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, will focus on “building a straight shot to safe superintelligence” and that it does not intend to bring a product to market for at least two years.