A new tech startup co-founded by OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has raised $1 billion in cash to help fund the development of a safe artificial intelligence system, the startup said last week.

Sutskever co-founded the company, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), with fellow OpenAI veteran Daniel Levy and former Apple AI chief Daniel Gross.

"We've started the world’s first straight-shot SSI lab, with one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence," the company wrote on social media in June.

The company said it plans to achieve its goal through "revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs" without the distraction of "management overhead or product cycles."

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Gross told Reuters that it was important to find investors who align with their goal of creating a safe superintelligence. 

"It's important for us to be surrounded by investors who understand, respect and support our mission, which is to make a straight shot to safe superintelligence and in particular to spend a couple of years doing R&D on our product before bringing it to market," Gross said told the outlet.

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Investors include venture capitalist firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and SV Angel.

The company is believed to be valued at $5 billion, sources told Reuters.

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SSI currently has 10 employees, and plans to use the $1 billion to recruit top AI talent to its offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel, according to the outlet.