OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is using Google Cloud’s TPU chips to power its AI research, part of a new partnership the companies announced on Wednesday in a press release.
Google Cloud says SSI is using TPUs to “accelerate its research and development efforts toward building a safe, superintelligent AI.”
Cloud providers are chasing a handful of unicorn AI startups that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on computing power every year to train AI foundation models. SSI’s deal with Google Cloud suggests the former will spend a large chunk of its computing budget with Google Cloud; a source familiar tells TechCrunch that Google Cloud is SSI’s primary computing provider.
Google Cloud has a history of striking computing deals with its former AI researchers, many of whom are now running billion-dollar AI startups. (Sutskever once worked at Google.) In October, Google Cloud said it would be the primary computing provider for World Labs, founded by ex-Google Cloud AI chief scientist Fei-Fei Li.
It’s unclear if SSI has struck partnerships with other cloud or computing providers. A Google Cloud spokesperson declined to comment. A Safe Superintelligence spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SSI came out of stealth in June 2024, months after Sutskever departed from his role as OpenAI’s chief scientist. The company has $1 billion in backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, SV Angel, and others.
Since SSI’s launch, we’ve heard relatively little about the startup’s activities. On its website, SSI says that developing safe, superintelligent AI systems is “our mission, our name, and our entire product roadmap, because it is our sole focus.” Sutskever previously said that he had identified “a new mountain to climb” and is investigating new ways to improve the performance of frontier AI models.
Before co-founding OpenAI, Sutskever spent several years at Google Brain researching neural networks. After leading OpenAI’s AI safety work for years, Sutskever played a key role in the ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. Sutskever later joined an employee movement to reinstate Altman as CEO.
After the ordeal, Sutskever reportedly wasn’t seen at OpenAI’s offices for months, and ultimately left the startup to start SSI.