DeepMind’s David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data

Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded months ago by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has raised $1.1 billion in funding at a $5.1 billion valuation. The company aims to create a 'superlearner' AI that discovers knowledge and skills through reinforcement learning—trial and error—without relying on human-generated data. Silver, a professor at University College London, previously led DeepMind’s reinforcement learning team and developed AlphaZero, which mastered chess and Go purely from self-play. The round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Google, Nvidia, and the UK’s Sovereign AI fund.

Ineffable’s approach contrasts with large language models that train on vast human datasets. If successful, Silver claims it could be a scientific breakthrough on par with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The company joins a trend of 'coconut rounds'—large seed investments in AI ventures founded by star researchers, like Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs ($1.03B) and Tim Rocktäschel’s Recursive Superintelligence ($500M). This momentum underscores London’s growing role as an AI hub, fueled by DeepMind alumni and investor appetite for novel AI paradigms.