Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, raised $1.1 billion at a $5.1 billion valuation to build AI that learns without human data

Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded by David Silver (formerly leading reinforcement learning at DeepMind), raised $1.1 billion in funding. The round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, the British Business Bank, and Sovereign AI.

The company aims to create a 'superlearner' that discovers knowledge and skills without relying on human data by using reinforcement learning (a technique where AI systems learn through trial and error rather than studying human examples). Silver previously led development of AlphaZero at DeepMind, which defeated professional chess and Go players by learning purely from experience.

Ineffable Intelligence joins a cohort of AI ventures founded by prominent researchers and valued above $5 billion. AMI Labs, co-founded by Yann LeCun, raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation; Recursive Superintelligence, co-founded by DeepMind's Tim Rocktäschel, raised $500 million with reported demand to stretch to $1 billion.