DeepMind’s David Silver has raised $1.1 billion to build an AI that learns without human data

Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded by David Silver, a former DeepMind researcher, has raised $1.1 billion in funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion to join the race for new AI models that can outperform large language models.

According to its newly launched website, Ineffable aims to create a “super learner” capable of discovering knowledge and skills without relying on human data by leveraging reinforcement learning — a technology in which AI systems learn through trial and error rather than studying human-generated examples. This is Silver’s area of ​​expertise.

Silver, a professor at University College London, until recently led the reinforcement learning team at Google-owned DeepMind, where he spent more than a decade before leaving to found this new venture.

While at DeepMind, Silver co-developed software that beat professional players at chess and the backgammon game Go by learning only from experience, without feeding human strategies or game logs—beating the world’s best computer programs on every game. The most notable of these was AlphaZero. Likewise, the Unspeakable Intelligence program hopes that the outstanding learner will discover all knowledge from his or her own experience.

A great learner may lack experience, but the company does not lack ambition. “If this succeeds, it will represent a scientific breakthrough of a magnitude comparable to Darwin’s: as his law explained all life, our law will explain and structure all intelligence,” his site claims (including capital letters).

Referring to “Ineffable Intelligence” as his “life’s work” in a personal note he has since posted on the company blog, Silver also told Wired that “any money I make from Ineffable will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible.”

It’s unclear how, when and how much money the project will make, but that clearly hasn’t hindered fundraising.

According to Wired, the round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia and others. These other investors include the British Business Bank and Sovereign AI Fund, the UK’s recently launched sovereign venture fund for artificial intelligence.

Fast forward to so-called quintet status—that is, companies worth more than $5 billion—Ineffable Intelligence joins the club of AI ventures founded by star researchers whose names attracted seed rounds so large that they were called coconut rounds (a tongue-in-cheek escalation of the “seed” round). Just last month, AMI Labs, co-founded by Turing Award winner and former Meta AI scientist Yann LeCun, raised $1.03 billion at a pre-market valuation of $3.5 billion.

There may be more companies in this template. Recursive Superintelligence, co-founded by former DeepMind principal scientist Tim Rocktachel and based in the UK, has reportedly raised $500 million, with enough demand to expand that to $1 billion.

While Recursive also has ties to the US, these companies signal growing momentum around London as an AI hub. This is partly due to DeepMind’s continued presence after its acquisition by Google in 2014. But it’s not just DeepMind. Jeff Bezos’ AI lab, Project Prometheus, is reportedly in talks to secure office space close to Google’s AI center.

This also translates into a strong alumni network, with several former DeepMind employees reportedly set to join Ineffable’s executive team.