In early June, tech entrepreneur Vik Bajaj took over Saison, a two-Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco, for an off-the-record dinner to talk about AI with journalists and a handful of scientists. In attendance was Sherjil Ozair, a late addition who had previously held senior research roles at DeepMind and Tesla . The following day, Bajaj and Ozair were on their way to making a deal, public records show.

Bajaj didn’t mention it at the dinner, but earlier this year he had begun working with Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos on a new AI venture called Project Prometheus. Backed by $6.2 billion in funding, including from Bezos, Project Prometheus is working on AI systems that can support the manufacturing of computers, cars, and even spacecraft, according to two people familiar

See Full Page