Jeff Bezos will head a new engineering-focused AI startup called Project Prometheus (www.engadget.com)

Jeff Bezos is launching a new, privately held AI startup called Project Prometheus and will serve as co-CEO alongside physicist–chemist Vik Bajaj. Backed by about $6.2 billion in funding (with Bezos contributing part of that), the company is positioning itself to build AI systems that learn from and act in the physical world rather than just process text and images. Project Prometheus — listed on LinkedIn as “AI for the physical economy” with offices in San Francisco, London and Zurich — has reportedly hired nearly 100 people so far, including talent from OpenAI and DeepMind, and aims its work at engineering-heavy domains like vehicles, manufacturing and space technology (Bezos’ long-running Blue Origin venture provides relevant context). Technically, this signals a pivot from large language-model–centric products toward embodied intelligence: things like sensor fusion, simulation-to-real transfer, control and robotics, digital twins, and safety‑critical systems for aerospace and industrial automation. With deep pockets and senior leadership experienced in moonshot engineering (Bajaj’s Google X/Waymo background) the startup could accelerate integrated hardware–software research—closing gaps in perception, planning and reliable real‑world execution—but will also face hard problems around data collection, generalization, verification and regulatory safety. For the AI community, Project Prometheus is notable both for its ambition to commercialize physically grounded AI and for the talent and capital it’s pulling into an area many view as the next frontier after purely digital models.