The Cost Of Jeff Bezos' New AI Startup Might Shock You

As we inch toward the halfway point of the 2020s, no industry has seen a bigger revolution than the tech industry, driven by the increased development and applications of AI. This has left many Americans wondering how they can invest in AI. It is this development that has led Jeff Bezos, one of the world's wealthiest people, to step back into a role as CEO after decreasing his role at Amazon in 2021. Bezos has proceeded to take the helm of Project Prometheus, an artificial intelligence startup. While the project is still in the early stages of development, it has already gained $6.2 billion in funding.

Forbes lists Bezos' net worth at nearly $215 billion, making him the third-richest person in the world behind Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. The former Amazon CEO has poured just a fraction of this spending power into Project Prometheus. His backing has made up a good portion of the company's investment, making it one of the best-financed AI startups in the nation. Importantly, Bezos is not without his red flags as Amazon faces multiple antitrust lawsuits, with some looking into why its financial strategy makes everything you buy more expensive. Regardless, the amount of money being invested in AI startups in 2025 alone is staggering, with companies like Anysphere announcing investments of over $2 billion.

Much of the modern workforce is becoming increasingly intertwined with AI, from models helping write code to AI integration in the health sector. As a result, the AI industry is highly saturated as a whole. The United States has produced 40 noteworthy models in 2024 alone, significantly outpacing other countries, according to a 2025 Stanford AI index Report. With all that in mind, some are asking what could go wrong with this historic AI bubble. It is this market that Project Prometheus is attempting to compete in, and why the large amount of capital is so significant. The company's investment rivals even that of leading AI giants like Anthropic, which announced its late-stage Series F fundraising at $13.3 billion.

This investment is in part due to the mission of the company. Periodic states on its website, "Our goal is to create an AI scientist." The way the company says it will do this is by having models conduct real-world experiments rather than learning from data sets, like many prominent models. This idea is not entirely new, with the creators of Google's DeepMind winning a 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with science and AI. This success, as well as the involvement of AI visionaries like Vik Bajaj — who lists himself as co-CEO and co-founder of Project Prometheus on LinkedIn – that has driven such high investments.