David Silver, 49, a former Google DeepMind researcher and professor at University College London, aims to develop AI capable of learning independently to solve problems beyond human reach.
The seed round is being led by Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm, and is expected to value the company at around $4 billion pre-investment, according to the Financial Times. Major technology players, including Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft, are reportedly in discussions to invest.
Silver, who was among the first employees at DeepMind in 2010, played a pivotal role in breakthroughs such as AlphaGo, the AI that defeated the world’s top Go players in 2016. His accolades include the Marvin Minsky Medal for outstanding achievements in AI, the Princess Royal Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Mensa Foundation Prize for best scientific discovery in AI.
In a recent academic paper, Silver argued that while AI has advanced rapidly by learning from large datasets of human-generated information, it is now approaching limits in areas like mathematics, coding, and science. He proposes that the next leap toward superhuman intelligence requires AI agents to generate their own data by interacting with their environment, a process he calls continual, self-directed learning.
Silver’s career spans academia and industry. He co-founded Elixir Studios, a video game company, in 1998, and later earned a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Alberta. His long-standing collaboration with DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis dates back to their student days at the University of Cambridge, where they dreamt of building powerful AI systems together.
Investors are increasingly willing to back AI researchers like Silver before a fully developed product exists. Other notable figures, such as Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, have raised billions for similar initiatives aimed at superhuman AI.
If successful, Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence funding round would send a strong signal that London can rival Silicon Valley as a global hub for cutting-edge AI startups.
