Amazon Co-Founder, Jeff Bezos, is returning to an operational role for the first time since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in 2021. He is set to co-lead a new, ambitious artificial intelligence startup named Project Prometheus. It has become one of the most heavily funded early-stage ventures globally after raising a sum of $6.2 billion.
Jeff Bezos’s vision is still considered a company in stealth mode, and its bold objective is to develop AI well beyond text-generation.
Bezos will co-lead the company with scientist Vik Bajaj, who has vast experience at Google X and Alphabet’s life-science arm. The company has hired nearly 100 researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta; a clear signal of its high ambitions. While Bezos continues focusing on Blue Origin, the startup represents his first formal leadership position in years.
Unlike AI chatbots that are trained on internet-scale text, Project Prometheus will aim to build systems that learn from interacting with actual machines, experiments, and sensory data. It will work on enabling engineers and scientists to design, test, and build products in industries such as aerospace, automobiles, computing, and material science.
The approach aligns closely with Bezos’s long-standing interest in space exploration.
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Prometheus reflects a broader trend among next-generation AI labs toward ‘world models’: AI that understands and reasons about the physical environment. Rivals, including Periodic Labs and Physical Intelligence, are pursuing similar models to automate lab experiments and accelerate discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology.
Industry leaders such as Meta’s chief Yann LeCun have argued that traditional large language models are limited and can’t achieve human-level reasoning with real-world grounding.
Even though key details remain guarded, including its official launch date, Project Prometheus is a powerful new phase in the AI race. Bezos’s return to a hands-on leadership position places this venture as a major contender that aims to redefine how AI shapes scientific and industrial innovation.