Robinhood CEO's AI startup Harmonic expands into software, chip design verification

Harmonic, the AI startup co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, said on Tuesday it was expanding its Aristotle model from mathematical proofs into software and chip design verification, as AI's growing use in detecting software flaws draws increased scrutiny.

Researchers recently used the technology to uncover critical bugs in PHP, prompting a global rush to patch the vulnerabilities.

Here are more details:


* Backed by Nvidia's venture capital arm, Sequoia and Ribbit Capital, Harmonic raised $120 million in a funding round last November that valued it at $1.45 billion

* Harmonic is developing what it calls "mathematical superintelligence", a reasoning-focused AI system aimed at reducing hallucinations and factual errors

* The company said Aristotle can now verify software written in C and chip designs written in Verilog

* US fusion lab DIII-D said Aristotle rebuilt part of its reactor-control software in four hours from one research paper and a 254-word prompt