A British AI lab called Ineffable Intelligence, established just a few months ago by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has secured $1.1 billion in funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion. The company aims to compete in the race to develop novel AI models that could surpass large language models.

According to its newly launched website, Ineffable is working on a "superlearner" designed to discover knowledge and skills without relying on human data. This approach leverages reinforcement learning—a technique where AI systems learn through trial and error rather than from human-generated examples. Silver, a professor at University College London, previously led the reinforcement learning team at Google-owned DeepMind for over a decade before founding this venture. At DeepMind, he contributed to programs like AlphaZero, which mastered chess and the board game Go purely through experience, defeating top computer programs without being fed human strategies or game records.

Ineffable Intelligence hopes its superlearner will similarly discover all knowledge from its own experience. While the superlearner may lack experience, the company does not lack ambition. "If successful, this will represent a scientific breakthrough of comparable magnitude to Darwin: where his law explained all Life, our law will explain and build all Intelligence," the site claims, with capitals included. Referring to Ineffable Intelligence as "his life's work" in a personal note on the company's blog, Silver also told Wired that "any money that I make from Ineffable will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible."

It remains unclear how, when, or how much the venture will generate revenue, but this has not hindered fundraising. According to Wired, the round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, and others. Additional investors include the British Business Bank and Sovereign AI, the U.K.'s recently launched sovereign venture fund for AI. By fast-forwarding to so-called pentacorn status—meaning companies valued at over $5 billion—Ineffable Intelligence joins the club of AI ventures founded by star researchers whose names have attracted seed rounds so large they are nicknamed "coconut rounds" (a tongue-in-cheek escalation of the "seed" round).

Just last month, AMI Labs, co-founded by Turing Award winner and former Meta AI scientist Yann LeCun, raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. There may be more companies in this mold. Recursive Superintelligence, co-founded by DeepMind's former principal scientist Tim Rocktäschel and incorporated in the U.K., reportedly raised $500 million, with enough demand to stretch that amount to $1 billion. While Recursive also has ties to the U.S., these companies suggest mounting momentum around London as an AI hub. This is partly due to DeepMind's continued presence after its acquisition by Google in 2014. But it is not just DeepMind. Jeff Bezos' AI lab, Project Prometheus, is reportedly in talks to secure office space close to Google's AI hub. This also translates into a powerful network of alumni, with several former DeepMind staffers reportedly set to join Ineffable's executive team.