Harmonic AI, co-founded by Vlad Tenev, has secured significant funding to build artificial intelligence systems capable of solving complex math problems, with the goal of creating “mathematical superintelligence”.
Introduction: a new bet on machine intelligence
Harmonic AI, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev, has raised $100 million in funding to tackle a problem that has occasionally stumped AI models: mathematics. The Series B funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Paradigm. The deal values the artificial intelligence startup at $875 million, according to Tenev, who serves as the company’s CEO, a non-operational role.
An ambitious goal: mathematical superintelligence
Founded in 2023 by Tenev and Tudor Achim, who previously led autonomous driving startup Helm.ai, the Palo Alto, California-based startup aims to build artificial intelligence systems that can solve complex math problems, creating what the company refers to as “mathematical superintelligence.” Harmonic plans to make its flagship model, Aristotle, available to researchers and the general public later this year.
Tenev told Bloomberg News: “The near-term goal is to build AI that solves math problems at a level that surpasses any human. And the ultimate goal is to solve major unsolved mathematical problems and expand that to problems in physics and computer science.”
A different approach to eliminating hallucination
Tenev said Harmonic’s math-first approach should give it an advantage over large language models, which power AI chatbots and are generally not adept at solving complex mathematical problems. Harmonic is also seeking to eliminate the problem of hallucination, where a chatbot makes up information, by relying on formal verification, a mathematical method used to ensure an AI system works correctly.
Tenev said: “We can ensure that every piece of output and every step in our model’s reasoning can be verified. This is a very different approach to building AI models that I believe will be the dominant approach in the future.”
A deliberate valuation
Harmonic previously raised $75 million from Sequoia and Index. The new funding round gives it a valuation just shy of the $1 billion threshold that would make it a “unicorn.” Tenev said that was a deliberate choice. Tenev, who raised billions of dollars in funding for Robinhood before its 2021 IPO, said: “You never want to take the highest offer. Optimizing for valuation is never the right choice.”
Conclusion: a new foundation for intelligence
The Harmonic AI project represents an interesting shift in artificial intelligence research. Instead of focusing on natural language, the company focuses on the universe’s most fundamental language: mathematics. By building an artificial intelligence rooted in logical precision and formal verification, Harmonic hopes not only to create machines that can solve difficult problems, but also to build a more reliable and secure foundation for the next generation of artificial intelligence.
