Jeff Bezos' industrial AI startup Prometheus raises $12 billion（約1.9兆円） at a $41 billion（約6.6兆円） valuation, targeting the lengthy timelines in manufacturing and hardware design.

What happened: Prometheus, led by Jeff Bezos and former Google executive Vik Bajaj, closed a Series B funding round of $12 billion（約1.9兆円） that values the company at $41 billion（約6.6兆円）. Backers include JPMorgan, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, DST Global and Arch Venture Partners. Bezos was the biggest contributor to Prometheus' earlier $6.2 billion（約9900億円） Series A.

Why it matters: Prometheus is building engineering software (rather than factory automation or robotics) to compress the time it takes to design and manufacture physical products—from the initial concept through production. Bezos cited jet engines as an example, noting that incremental changes can stretch into a decade-long effort. The startup aims to make that cycle "10 times faster or even more," addressing what Bezos called a core bottleneck: "The cycle from dream, to manufacturing at rate, to having it out in the world can be very long."

What to watch: The company has about 150 employees and is positioning its work toward what it calls an "artificial general engineer." Prometheus has not yet disclosed how the system is trained or provided a timeline for an initial product release, citing the lack of an "internet of manufacturing data" available to ingest. The company also declined to address a reported plan to seek $100 billion（約16兆円） for a related holding company.