Andy Konwinski, a computer scientist and co -founder of Databricks and Purplexity, announced Monday that his company, Laude, forms a new AI research institute supported by $ 100 million from his own money.
THE Laude Institute It works less a AI research lab and more like a fund that wants to make investments structured similar to grants. In addition to Konwinski, the Institute’s Board of Directors includes Professor UC Berkeley Dave Patterson (known for a series of award -winning research), Jeff Dean (known as Google scientist) and Joelle Pineau (Vice President of AI META).
Konwinski has announced the first grant of the $ 3 million in the Institute and “flagship” for five years, which will anchor the new Systems AI workshop at UC Berkeley. It is a new workshop led by one of Berkeley’s most famous researchers, Ion Stoica, today’s director of Sky Computing Lab. Stoica is also co -founder of Startup Anyscale (AI and Python platform) and AI Big Data Company Databricks, both were manufactured by the technology developed in the Berkeley laboratory system.
The new AI Systems laboratory is set to open in 2027 and in addition to Stoica will include several other well -known researchers.
In his own blog Announcing the Institute, Konwinski described his mission as “built by and for computer science researchers … There are to overthrow the work that not only pushes the field forward but guides it to the most beneficial results”.
This is not necessarily an immediate review in Openai, which began as a AI research facility and is now undoubtedly consumed by its huge commercial side. But other researchers have fallen victim to the lure of money as well.
For example, the popular era of AI’s researcher faced a dispute when it revealed that Openai supported the creation of one of the AI reference points that was then used to reveal its new model O3. The founder of the time also started a start with the controversial mission to replace all human workers everywhere with AI agents.
Like other AI research organizations with commercial ambitions, Konwinski has shaped his institute in boundaries: as a non -profit organization with a public operating benefit.
It divides its research investments into two buckets called “slingshots and moonshots”. Slingshots are for an early stage research that can benefit from grants and practical assistance. The moons are, as the name suggests, for “long -term workshops facing challenges at the level of species such as AI for scientific discovery, Civic Discourse, health care and workforce”.
His workshop, for example, works with “Terminal Bench”, a reference point led by Stanford on how well the AI agents handle, used by the human.
One thing to note, Konwinski’s efforts under the name “Laude” are not exclusively a Research Research Institute. He too established a profit money capital Started in 2024. The co -founder of the fund is former Nea VC Pete Sonsini and a Laude spokesman tells us that he has more than 50 top researchers as LPS in the fund. As TechCrunch said earlier, Laude led $ 12 million to Arcade Startup Agent Agent Agent. He has quietly supported other newly established businesses.
A Laude spokesman tells us that while Konwinski is committed to $ 100 million, he is also looking for an open investment from other successful technologists. As for how Konwinski has gathered a fortune enough to guarantee $ 100 million for this new effort: Databricks closed a $ 15.3 billion funding round in January that sailed the company at $ 62 billion. Insured embarrassment last month A $ 14 billion assessment.
Do people really need another “good for humanity” research or with a dark non -profit/commercial structure? No, and yes.
AI research has become more and more confused. For example, the AI reference points designed to prove that the model of this seller works best have been abundantly these days. (Even salesforce Has its own LLM reference point for CRMS.)
An alliance that includes those who like Konwinski, Dean and Stoica by actually supporting truly independent research that could one day become independent and human trade could be an attractive alternative.
NOTE: This story was informed to reflect more details shared for the Laude VC Fund.
