The Superlearner Surge: Ineffable Intelligence Takes on AI Giants
A brand new British AI lab is making massive waves in the tech world. Ineffable Intelligence, founded just a few months ago by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has secured $1.1 billion in funding. This giant investment gives the startup a valuation of $5.1 billion right out of the gate. Silver and his team are entering the race to build a new type of AI model that could soon leave today’s large language models in the dust.
Ineffable has a very specific goal: they want to create a “superlearner”. Unlike the AI systems we use today, which learn by scanning massive piles of human data, this superlearner aims to discover knowledge on its own. It relies on a method called reinforcement learning. This is a technique where an AI learns through a process of trial and error rather than just copying human examples. Silver is one of the world’s leading experts in this field.
A History of Outsmarting Humans
Silver’s track record is hard to ignore. Before founding this new venture, he spent over ten years at Google-owned DeepMind. While there, he led the reinforcement learning team and helped build programs that beat world-class professional players at games like chess and Go. One of his most famous projects was AlphaZero. This program did not need human strategies or game records to win. It learned purely from its own experience and eventually defeated the best computer programs in the world. Ineffable Intelligence plans to apply that same logic to its superlearner so it can discover all knowledge for itself.
The company is not short on confidence. Ineffable claims that its work will be a scientific breakthrough on the same level as Darwin’s theory of evolution. On its website, the company states that while Darwin’s laws explained all life, their “law” will explain and build all intelligence. Silver considers Ineffable his “life’s work”. He even told reporters that any money he personally makes from the company will go to high-impact charities that save lives.
The Rise of the AI Pentacorn
This massive funding round was led by heavy hitters like Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other big names like Index Ventures, Google, and Nvidia also joined in. Even the British Business Bank and Sovereign AI, a UK government fund, put money into the deal. This investment has turned Ineffable into what some call a “pentacorn,” which is a company valued at over $5 billion.
Ineffable is not the only AI startup raising eye-popping amounts of cash lately. These rounds are so much larger than traditional “seed” rounds that some people have started calling them “coconut rounds”. For instance, another firm called AMI Labs recently raised $1.03 billion. Another UK startup, Recursive Superintelligence, reportedly raised $500 million and is looking for more.
London is quickly becoming a global hub for AI. This momentum started years ago when Google bought DeepMind in 2014. Now, even more major players are moving in. Reports suggest that Jeff Bezos’ AI lab, Project Prometheus, is in talks to secure office space near Google’s AI hub. As Ineffable builds out its executive team with more former DeepMind staffers, it is clear that the fight for the future of intelligence is just getting started.