WILTON, Conn., Oct. 10, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Elemental Cognition, the artificial intelligence company founded and led by Dr. David Ferrucci, creator of IBM’s Watson, and funded to date by global asset manager Bridgewater Associates, has appointed three noteworthy investors to the company’s Board of Advisors.
Jim Breyer (founder and CEO of Breyer Capital), Chris Varelas (founder and Managing Partner of Riverwood Capital), and Sam Palmisano (former CEO of IBM) each bring unique expertise and perspective to Elemental Cognition’s mission to change how machines learn, understand, and interact with humans. In addition to their appointment, Jim, Chris, and Sam have invested in Elemental Cognition along with the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund.
“The approaches of today’s AI are too short-sighted to achieve our most profound goal: creating a thought partner that is capable of engaging our rational minds and revealing the ‘why’ behind its answers. Elemental Cognition aims to solve this by building a system that interacts, learns, understands, and explains the world as humans do,” said Ferrucci. “Jim, Chris, and Sam grasp this challenge and the enormous positive impact a solution will have on our future. We are fortunate to have their commitment and support.”
“Elemental Cognition’s strategy naturally aligns with Bridgewater’s long-standing practice of taking a fundamental and systematic approach to solving complex problems. We are thrilled to welcome Jim, Chris, and Sam as partners in this journey,” noted Brian Kreiter, a senior Bridgewater executive and member of Elemental’s Board of Directors.
“The team at Elemental Cognition is solving one of the biggest challenges facing the future of AI, which is to develop the ability to reason and understand beyond statistical machine learning and data analytics. Dave’s vision for AI has tremendous potential to enhance human learning and innovation, and I’m proud to invest in it,” said Breyer. “I look forward to working with Dave and the enormously talented team he has assembled as they continue to develop AI that accelerates our own understanding so that we can find solutions to the world’s toughest problems.”
About Elemental Cognition
Today’s AI systems fail to understand the meaning behind language, so they cannot provide rich, reasoned explanations to their answers. Founded in 2015 by Dr. David Ferrucci, who conceived and led the development of IBM’s Watson, Elemental Cognition is teaching its AI system to learn the meaning underlying language. Rather than simply parroting patterns found in volumes of text, Elemental Cognition’s system uses classical machine learning to discover the shape of language. Then, using a new kind of learning, dubbed Natural Learning, it acquires and refines true understanding through reading, collaborative dialogue, and reasoning.
Through real language understanding, Elemental Cognition’s technology will become a powerful thought partner. By reading, understanding, and fluently engaging with humans in our own terms, it will provide rapid, efficient access to focused expertise accelerating our ability to learn, create, and solve problems. For more information, please visit https://www.elementalcognition.com.
About Bridgewater Associates
Bridgewater Associates is a global leader in institutional portfolio management with more than $160 billion in assets under management and known for being an industry-leading innovator. Located in Westport, CT, Bridgewater Associates manages portfolios for a wide array of institutional clients globally, including public and corporate pension funds, foreign governments and central banks, and university endowments and charitable foundations. For more information, please visit https://www.bridgewater.com.
About Breyer Capital
Breyer Capital is a premier global venture capital and private equity investor focused on catalyzing high-impact entrepreneurs in the United States, China, and India. Founded by Jim Breyer in 2006, Breyer Capital makes long-term, idea-driven strategic investments across verticals, with a conviction that artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality will transform technology and investment opportunities globally. For more information, please visit https://www.breyercapital.com.
Media Contact:
Kate Enos
The Bulleit Group
kate@bulleitgroup.com