Bezos' Prometheus erhebt $ 12B für die Automatisierung von Jet-Engines und Drogen

Prometheus, Jeff Bezos’s physical AI startup, just raised $12 billion at a $41 billion valuation to build what it calls an “artificial general engineer” — software that designs and manufactures physical systems from jet engines to drug compounds. That’s the largest single bet on a physical AI company yet, and it’s not even the startup’s first raise: Prometheus launched late last year with $6.2 billion.

What an “Artificial General Engineer” Actually Means

Prometheus is aiming to automate the entire engineering workflow for complex physical systems — think designing a turbine blade, simulating its stress points, then specifying the manufacturing process for a jet engine. Vik Bajaj, the former co-founder of Verily (Google’s life sciences unit), is the other co-founder. The company currently has 150 employees spread across San Francisco, London, and Zurich. Bezos told CNBC that a large chunk of the new capital will go toward compute, which makes sense: training and running multi-physics simulation models at scale is not cheap.

Bezos’s Labor Scarcity Bet vs. The Automation Wave

Bezos is swimming against the current narrative. While most AI leaders warn of mass job displacement, he argues that radical productivity gains will create “labor scarcity” — demand for human workers outstripping supply. “People who today have two-earner households, they’ll become one-earner households,” he said. I’m not buying it yet, but Bezos has skin in the game: his other company, Amazon, employs 1.5 million people and has laid off tens of thousands in the past year as it accelerates automation. He’s betting that physical AI will lift the standard of living, not destroy it.

Why VCs Are Piling Into Physical AI Despite Secrecy

Prometheus hasn’t disclosed what it’s actually built. The $12 billion round — from Bezos himself, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock — values the company at $41 billion, making it one of the most richly valued AI startups ever. Investors are pouring into physical AI because the sector is inherently more defensible than pure software: hardware designs, manufacturing processes, and regulatory hurdles create moats code alone can’t match. That thesis will get tested hard when Prometheus finally shows its hand.

The real question isn’t whether Prometheus can raise money — it clearly can. It’s whether an “artificial general engineer” can actually bridge the gap between simulation and reality without burning through $12 billion first.

Source: Jeff Bezos's Prometheus raises $12B to build an 'artificial general engineer' for the physical world
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