Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based synthetic intelligence startup co-founded by two notable ex-Google engineers, introduced right this moment that it has raised $30 million in seed funding from high-profile expertise traders. The younger firm, based simply final yr, goals to take a special method to AI by growing smaller, extra environment friendly fashions impressed by nature.
The seed spherical was led by Lux Capital, which has invested in pioneering AI corporations like Hugging Face, and in addition Khosla Ventures, identified for investing in OpenAI approach again in 2019. Japanese tech giants Sony, NTT and KDDI additionally participated within the spherical, marking a vote of confidence in Sakana from main home gamers.
Sakana, which suggests “fish” in Japanese, takes its inspiration from the collective behaviors of animal teams like colleges of fish and flocks of birds. The startup believes that getting smaller AI fashions to work collectively effectively might be simpler than coaching single gigantic fashions on large datasets, an method that many main AI labs have pursued.
Sakana co-founders David Ha and Llion Jones beforehand led AI analysis teams at Google. Jones co-authored a landmark paper on the Transformer mannequin in 2017 that underpins chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT right this moment.
Sakana’s method stands out at a time when the AI subject has fixated on scaling up fashions to beat benchmarks through sheer size. This tactic has produced spectacular outcomes, but in addition led to backlash over the computing assets and environmental affect required to coach and run colossal AI techniques.
Sakana execs argue that enormous fashions turn out to be inefficient as they balloon in dimension, whereas smaller, specialised fashions can collaborate to match the capabilities. The startup likens it to how teams of individuals every with distinct abilities outperform lone polymaths at advanced jobs.
The founding crew’s pedigree and various imaginative and prescient have been sufficient to draw prime Silicon Valley and home Japanese traders to fund Sakana’s Tokyo lab after only one yr of working independently. With contemporary capital and partnerships with the likes of NTT, the corporate will look to employees up and additional develop its nature-inspired AI strategies.
Early-stage backing from U.S. and Japanese tech heavyweights indicators confidence that Sakana may pioneer a brand new AI paradigm from Asia, whereas giving Japan affect in a strategic expertise the place the U.S. and China have dominated thus far.