Here’s what Jeff Bezos’ new startup Prometheus will do

杰夫·贝索斯的新创企 Prometheus 究竟要做什么？

In November, Jeff Bezos announced that he would become co-CEO of a new startup called Prometheus. At the time, the startup said it would focus on “physical AI”—an increasingly common term for applying the same deep learning principles behind large language models or generative AI to things like robotics and manufacturing—but specifics were scarce.

去年 11 月，杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）宣布将出任一家名为 Prometheus 的新创企的联席首席执行官。当时，该公司表示将专注于“物理人工智能”（physical AI）——这是一个日益流行的术语，指将大语言模型或生成式 AI 背后的深度学习原理应用于机器人和制造业等领域——但当时并未透露具体细节。

Now, with a major new round of funding, Bezos and co-founder Vik Bajaj have talked about it in slightly more detail. The funding round is significant—$12 billion now, after an initial round of $6.2 billion last year, for a valuation of $41 billion. The funding comes from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and others, plus a sizable amount from Bezos’ coffers. The startup currently employs 150 people.

如今，随着新一轮大规模融资的完成，贝索斯与联合创始人维克·巴贾杰（Vik Bajaj）披露了更多细节。本轮融资规模巨大，在去年 62 亿美元的首轮融资基础上，又筹集了 120 亿美元，公司估值达到 410 亿美元。资金来源包括摩根大通、高盛、贝莱德等机构，以及贝索斯个人投入的大笔资金。目前，该公司拥有 150 名员工。

Much of that funding will be put toward buying compute. “One of the reasons we’ve had to raise a significant amount of funding is because… what we’re doing is very compute-intensive and we need to create that data,” Bezos told CNBC.

这笔资金的大部分将用于购买算力。贝索斯在接受 CNBC 采访时表示：“我们之所以必须筹集大量资金，原因之一在于……我们所做的事情对算力要求极高，而且我们需要创造这些数据。”

So what exactly are they doing? Bezos summarized a significant portion of the company’s focus as creating an “artificial general engineer.” “All societal wealth is driven by invention,” Bezos told The New York Times. “Six thousand years ago, somebody invented the plow, and we all got wealthier. Then, much later, somebody invented the steam engine, and we all got wealthier.” He went on to say that “what Prometheus seeks to do is to offer a set of tools that dramatically accelerates that invention loop.”

那么，他们到底在做什么？贝索斯将公司的核心业务概括为打造一位“通用人工智能工程师”（artificial general engineer）。“所有的社会财富都源于发明，”贝索斯告诉《纽约时报》，“六千年前，有人发明了犁，我们都变得更富有了。后来，有人发明了蒸汽机，我们又变得更富有了。”他接着说道：“Prometheus 旨在提供一套工具，极大地加速这一发明循环。”

Speaking to CNBC, he used the same examples but described the company’s goal in loftier terms. He said the objective is to produce technological breakthroughs that will produce “civilizational wealth,” not just wealth for a single individual or company.

在接受 CNBC 采访时，他引用了同样的例子，但用更宏大的措辞描述了公司的目标。他表示，其目标是实现技术突破，从而创造“文明财富”，而不仅仅是为个人或单一公司创造财富。

Bajaj described the team’s goals in slightly more pragmatic terms. He said designing new technologies “takes a thousand human minds creatively working together” and is “one of the most complex things we do as a species.” He added that the engineers behind those breakthroughs “use tools that really haven’t changed for decades. Part of what we want to do is arm them with tools that allow them to come up with those designs much more quickly.”

巴贾杰则以更务实的角度描述了团队的目标。他表示，设计新技术“需要上千名人类大脑的创造性协作”，这是“我们作为一个物种所能做的最复杂的事情之一”。他补充说，这些突破背后的工程师们“所使用的工具几十年来几乎没有改变。我们想做的一部分工作，就是为他们提供工具，让他们能更快速地完成这些设计。”

A couple of months ago, The New York Times reported that Bezos and Bajaj are working to raise a $100 billion investment fund to go into companies that could leverage and benefit directly from what Prometheus may produce. That could include some of Bezos’ own other ventures, such as Blue Origin.

几个月前，《纽约时报》报道称，贝索斯和巴贾杰正致力于筹集一支 100 亿美元的投资基金，用于投资那些能够直接利用并受益于 Prometheus 研发成果的公司。这可能包括贝索斯旗下的其他企业，例如蓝色起源（Blue Origin）。

It’s still early for Prometheus, and no specific new products or technologies have been announced. Prometheus is not operating in a vacuum, either. There are numerous other startups exploring AI’s applications in the physical world, from training world models to drive policies for robotics, to overhauling manufacturing with more robust and capable automation. With this round, though, Prometheus has a significant funding advantage over most competitors.

对于 Prometheus 而言，一切尚处于早期阶段，目前尚未发布任何具体的新产品或技术。此外，Prometheus 也并非在真空中运作。许多其他初创公司也在探索 AI 在物理世界的应用，从训练用于机器人驱动策略的世界模型，到通过更强大、更高效的自动化技术彻底改造制造业。不过，凭借本轮融资，Prometheus 在资金方面已对大多数竞争对手形成了显著优势。