Japanese AI R&D company Sakana AI announced the completion of Series A financing of more than US$100 million. Investors include NEA, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital and NVIDIA, marking a new stage in the development of Japan's AI field. This round of financing will be used to support Sakana AI’s research in nature-inspired intelligence and basic models, especially evolutionary optimization and sparsity technologies. The company's cooperation with NVIDIA will further enhance its capabilities in GPU technology and data center resources and promote the democratization of AI in Japan.
Recently, Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based AI research and development company, announced the successful completion of Series A financing of more than US$100 million. Major investors in this round include New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital, with NVIDIA also participating.
The goal of Sakana AI is to promote AI research through nature-inspired intelligence and basic models, especially in the areas of evolutionary optimization and sparsity.
In addition, Sakana AI's cooperation with NVIDIA will provide it with advanced GPU technology, which is critical to achieving its development goals. Through this collaboration, Sakana AI will also gain access to data centers in Japan, thereby enhancing its ability to experiment locally and drive AI innovation.
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said that countries are actively embracing sovereign AI to capture and encode their own data, culture and language through unique large-scale language models. He pointed out that Sakana AI is promoting the democratization of AI in Japan, using NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform to develop cutting-edge basic models, aiming to accelerate the process of scientific discovery.
Sakana AI's collaboration with NVIDIA focuses on three areas: promoting research, leveraging NVIDIA's data center infrastructure, and enhancing Japan's AI community. Sakana AI also plans to bridge the gap in AI talents in Japan and promote the development of local talents by holding events and university outreach.
Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, said that although many laboratories around the world are trying to catch up and use the same technology as other laboratories to train basic models, Sakana AI is showing a path to innovation. He is very excited about this collaboration and says he looks forward to advancing this journey with NVIDIA.
Sakana AI aims to address major challenges facing Japan, such as population decline and geopolitical tensions. The company hopes to build a world-class AI laboratory to develop technologies that can support Japan's future competitiveness and help solve the country's pressing problems.
With this Series A funding round, Sakana AI will invest in talent and infrastructure to advance its mission of creating sustainable and efficient AI technology.
Highlight:
Sakana AI successfully completed more than US$100 million in Series A financing, with major investors including New Enterprise Association, Khosla Ventures and NVIDIA.
? Sakana AI has established a cooperative relationship with NVIDIA to jointly promote Japanese AI research and enhance local experimental capabilities.
The company plans to solve the shortage of AI talents in Japan by holding events and university outreach.
Sakana AI’s huge financing and strategic cooperation with NVIDIA indicate that Japan’s AI industry will usher in vigorous development and is expected to occupy a place in the global AI competition. Its goal of focusing on talent cultivation and solving national problems also reflects corporate social responsibility and long-term development strategies. We look forward to Sakana AI making more breakthroughs in the field of AI in the future.