Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise $100 billion for a fund aimed at acquiring industrial companies and integrating artificial intelligence technologies into them, The Wall Street Journal reports.
In recent months, Bezos has met with major asset managers to secure funding for the project—including during trips to the Middle East and Singapore, the newspaper writes, citing sources and investor documents. A spokesperson for Bezos did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s chief executive officer in 2021 but remains chairman of the board, co-founded and partly funded Project Prometheus—a company focused on applying artificial intelligence in the physical world, The New York Times reported in November.
The startup, co-founded with former Google employee Vik Bajaj, has not publicly disclosed its ambitions, but is actively recruiting artificial intelligence specialists in San Francisco, Zurich, and London—according to employees’ LinkedIn profiles.