Inflection AI raised $1.3 billion in a funding round led by Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Nvidia.

The generative AI startup claims that it will build the largest AI cluster in the world comprising 22,000 Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs, with the help of GPU cloud company CoreWeave.

Inflection AI is among a number of companies developing large language models, including the Microsoft-funded OpenAI and the Google-backed Anthropic.

The startup launched 'Pi' in May to be "a kind and supportive companion offering text and voice conversations, friendly advice, and concise information in a natural, flowing style."

CEO and co-founder Mustafa Suleyman said: “Personal AI is going to be the most transformational tool of our lifetimes. This is truly an inflection point. We’re excited to collaborate with Nvidia, Microsoft, and CoreWeave as well as Eric, Bill, and many others to bring this vision to life."

Suleyman co-founded the Google-owned DeepMind, but left the company in 2019 after being placed on administrative leave amid allegations of workplace bullying.

After a stint at the rest of Google, he left to found Inflection AI with $225 million in funding from Greylock, Microsoft, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn cofounder), Bill Gates (Microsoft cofounder), Eric Schmidt (ex-Google CEO), Mike Schroepfer (ex-Meta CTO), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind cofounder), Will.i.am, Horizons Ventures, and Dragoneer.

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, whose GPUs have powered the current generative AI wave, said: “A powerful benefit of the AI revolution is the ability to use natural, conversational language to interact with supercomputers to simplify aspects of our everyday lives.

"The world-class team at Inflection AI is helping to lead this groundbreaking work, deploying Nvidia AI technology to develop, train and deploy massive generative AI models that enable amazing personal digital assistants."

Inflection notes that if it deploys its cluster of 22,000 GPUs, it would operate a system with 22 exaflops in the 16-bit precision mode. Under the Linpack benchmark, Inflection believes would be the second most powerful supercomputer in the Top500 list of fastest systems. However, with the Aurora supercomputer set to launch soon, and El Capitan on the way, it would likely be less powerful than either system.