Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has been rebuilding since leaving the e-commerce giant in 2021, and his latest venture, a physical AI lab, is already close to a $38 billion valuation.
Bezos’ new company, codenamed Project Prometheus, is close to closing a $10 billion fundraising deal from JPMorgan, BlackRock and other investors, according to the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Prometheus launched in November 2025 and raised $6.2 billion in seed capital from investors, including Bezos himself. According to reports, demand from institutional investors was so great that they had to expand the round by another $10 billion.
The new round of funding, which is expected to close soon, values the company at $38 billion.
Why is there so much interest in Bezos’ AI lab?
Project Prometheus is touted as a physical AI lab that will put tech billionaire Jeff Bezos back in an operational role after his departure from Amazon in 2021.
The company’s goal is to develop novel AI systems that can understand the physical laws of the universe and interact with the physical environment, particularly in manufacturing and industrial processes. Such systems are significantly different from the AI models of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other popular LLM companies.
The biggest challenge for companies building physical AI systems is usually the data pit. Large language models are trained on text, code, images, and data that come from the Internet and are readily available and abundant.
Physical AI requires real-world interaction data such as sensor readings, manufacturing processes, tactile feedback, trajectories, failures in chaotic environments, etc., which are typically proprietary and expensive to collect.
Elon Musk’s Tesla is a good textbook example of the data situation in the physical AI space. Tesla reportedly has 5 to 6 million electric cars equipped with fully self-driving (monitored) hardware and software, driving more than 50 billion miles each year. The real driving data collected gives the company a lead over the competition in improving the self-driving experience.
This is a lever that Prometheus will pursue with the freshly raised capital, with the aim of becoming “one of the most important companies in the world,” says Arch’s Nelsen, one of Prometheus’ directors. But the AI company wants to do this through a holding company.
Prometheus will scan companies for data
Bezos and Prometheus co-chief executive Vikram Bajaj, a former Google executive, are also in separate talks to raise tens of billions of dollars for the holding company, according to people familiar with the matter.
All of those billions will largely go toward acquiring companies, particularly in engineering, architecture and design, which two executives believe would be upended by Prometheus. The holding company would act more as a “vehicle for the transformation of manufacturing”. said the people.
By investing in such companies, the company can collect real-world data to train Prometheus AI systems. The AI lab is largely still in its early stages. The company has hired over 100 employees, including talent from big names like Meta, OpenAI and DeepMind.
Amazon has also invested an additional $5 billion in Anthropic, with the option to invest up to $20 billion more over time. Is anthropic has committed to spending over $100 billion on AWS technologies over the next decade as part of the new contract, Cryptopolitan reported on Tuesday.
