Flapping Airplanes has raised a $1 billion Series A funding round led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital. The AI lab aims to reduce the data and computing power needed to train models, but has no product on sale yet.
Flapping Airplanes announced the funding at a reported $6 billion valuation, with Sequoia Capital, GV and Kleiner Perkins also participating. The round follows a $180 million seed round just 9 months earlier.
The research lab is developing ways to train AI models with less data and make better use of GPUs. Its founders say their software framework can run training and inference together, combining tasks that wait for data with tasks that perform calculations to keep chips busy.
For companies building with AI, the goal is cheaper models to train and run, rather than a product they can buy today. Flapping Airplanes plans to sell its technology eventually, but whether its research can deliver those savings remains unproven.
The committed funding gives research into lower-cost AI substantial resources to hire and develop its approach.
Better chip utilisation could reduce the computing resources companies need to train and run AI models.
Lower costs remain a research goal, not a benefit builders can buy today.
Written automatically by the Made in 10 Newsroom from the source above.
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Former OpenAI researcher Shyamal Hitesh Anadkat has returned to India to build Empirical Machines. The startup aims to use AI to accelerate research into molecules and materials.