François Chollet, a prominent AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to create frontier AI systems with new designs.
the startup, Ndeait will consist of an AI research and science lab. It seeks to “develop and operationalize” AGI. AGI, which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” usually refers to artificial intelligence that can perform any task a human can. It’s a goal for many AI companies, including OpenAI.
“We are betting on a different path to create AI capable of true invention, adaptation and innovation,” Chollet wrote in a series of posts in X. “We believe we have a small but real chance of achieving a breakthrough — creating artificial intelligence that can learn at least as effectively as humans and that can continue to improve over time with no obstacles in sight.”
Ndea plans to use a technique called program synthesis, combined with other technical approaches, to unlock AGI. Chollet believes that program composition, which allows AI to generalize problems it hasn’t seen before with just a few examples, can help overcome the most intractable problems in AI research.
Program composition is traditionally computer intensive. But Chollet believes that this limitation can be overcome – and that overcoming it will help accelerate scientific progress.
“[W]We’re not alone in recognizing the potential of program composition — it’s a technique that every AI lab is starting to explore now,” says a blog post on Ndea’s website. “We are on the cusp of a pivotal moment in scientific history, and the world deserves every possible immediate, singular effort to build AGI.”
Ndea, which Chollet co-founded with Zapier co-founder and head of AI Mike Knoop, has not disclosed whether it has raised capital from outside investors. However, the company is currently hiring for remote research positions, which suggests there is at least some financial backing.
It’s not everyday you see people of this caliber @fchollet and @miceknoop decide to start a company! I’m excited to join as a supporter, but most of all, their vision of how to solve hard problems in AI is awesome. Our field is dominated by hype and hope -…
— Naveen Rao (@NaveenGRao) January 15, 2025
Knoop says he is leaving his day job at Zapier to focus on Ndea, but will remain on Zapier’s board of directors.
“We’re assembling the world’s leading software development team,” Knoop he said in a post on X. “Our first focus is on deep learning-driven program synthesis to create AGI that can invent, adapt and innovate… But even more exciting is the opportunity to metaphorically time travel into the future: learn , invent, and discover things that wouldn’t happen organically for decades or even centuries.”
Chollet, who recently launched a nonprofit with Knoop to develop benchmarks for AGI, is the latest high-profile AI researcher to leave Big Tech to found an independent AI lab. Perhaps best known as the creator of Keras, a high-level open source API that can be used to build AI models and tackle machine learning tasks, Chollet announced last November that he would be leaving Google after nearly a decade there.
Ilya Sutskever, former chief scientist and co-founder of OpenAI, last year founded Safe Superintelligence, an AI lab that has raised over $1 billion in capital from investors including Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz. Elsewhere, longtime Google AI researcher and Stanford academic Fei-Fei Li runs World Labs, a company that develops AI systems that can create 3D simulations that look like video games.
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