An Eric Schmidt–Chaired Quantum AI Moon Shot Has a Rocky Launch
AI startup SandboxAQ’s success in raising money this month at a $5.6 billion valuation, despite many uncertainties around its business, showed the influence of big name backers in overcoming risks inherent in highly complex technologies.
In October, on a panel at an investor conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, futurist Peter Diamandis congratulated a technology entrepreneur sitting next to him, Jack Hidary, on the success of his startup, SandboxAQ. “I’ve never seen a company scale revenues as quickly as you have,” said Diamandis, founder of the nonprofit XPrize Foundation.
Also on the panel was Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, who has similarly shown his enthusiasm for SandboxAQ—which focuses on two buzzy technologies, quantum computing and artificial intelligence—by becoming one of its most prominent financial backers and its executive chair. Earlier this month, Schmidt participated in a $300 million funding round that valued SandboxAQ at a whopping $5.6 billion, almost double its valuation in a 2022 funding round.