Jeff Bezos’s Project Prometheus has recruited Kyle Kosic, a co-founder of Elon Musk’s xAI and former OpenAI engineer, signaling the start-up’s aggressive push to dominate industrial AI applications. According to reporting by multiple sources, Kosic will focus on AI infrastructure projects, leveraging his experience leading the Colossus supercomputer at xAI and his subsequent tenure at OpenAI. This move comes amid a wave of departures from xAI, where all eleven co-founders have left, some citing management issues under Musk, as first noted by Business Insider.
Project Prometheus, launched by Bezos last year and led alongside former Google executive Vikram Bajaj, is rapidly expanding its operations, hiring hundreds of engineers, AI researchers, and specialists experienced in large-scale infrastructure projects across offices in San Francisco, London, and Zurich. The company is building AI systems capable of understanding physical laws and operating in complex real-world environments, aiming to surpass language-based AI models such as ChatGPT and Claude Code.
The start-up is particularly focused on industrial sectors, including engineering, aviation, architecture, and design. Sources familiar with the project indicate that Prometheus has already compiled what may be the largest corpus of engineering data in the world to train AI systems on domain-specific applications, such as jet engine design. The company also plans to acquire equity stakes in companies likely to be disrupted by AI, gathering operational data and deploying staff within these firms as “forward deployed engineers” to improve efficiency and margins.
Bezos and Bajaj are spearheading efforts to raise tens of billions of dollars for a “permanent capital vehicle” that will back the industrial AI transformation, likened by insiders to a Berkshire Hathaway-style holding company. The goal is to accelerate AI-driven progress across sectors that would otherwise take years to modernize, positioning Prometheus as both a technology developer and an investor shaping the future of industrial AI.
The recruitment of Kosic highlights the intense competition for top AI talent. Bezos’s start-up is luring leading engineers and researchers with high-profile roles and substantial resources, while competitors like xAI have faced significant talent attrition. Prometheus aims to overcome longstanding industry challenges in creating AI systems capable of fully understanding physical space, an area where existing models struggle due to limited high-quality real-world data.
Project Prometheus is also reportedly in discussions with sovereign investment funds, including from Singapore and Gulf nations, to expand its capital base. By combining advanced AI research with strategic investments in industrial enterprises, the company hopes to accelerate innovation and deliver practical AI solutions across multiple sectors.