Sakana AI
{{Short description|Japanese AI company}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Sakana AI Co, Ltd.
| native_name = Sakana AI株式会社
| native_name_lang = ja
| type = Private
| industry = Information technology
| founded = {{Start date and age|July 2023}}
| founders = {{unbulleted list | David Ha | Llion Jones | Ren Ito }}
| hq_location_city = Tokyo
| hq_location_country = Japan
| website = {{url|https://sakana.ai/}}
}}
Sakana AI Co, Ltd. is a Japanese artificial intelligence company based in Tokyo.
Overview
Sakana AI's main research fields are evolution and collective intelligence of AI. The company's name is derived from the Japanese word さかな (sakana), which means fish. This represents the idea of a school of fish coming together and forming a coherent entity from simple rules, which is an analogy of collective intelligence.{{Cite web |last=AI |first=Sakana |date=2024-01-16 |title=Sakana AI |url=https://sakana.ai/seed-round/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=sakana.ai |language=en}}
The company was founded by David Ha, Llion Jones and Ren Ito. Llion Jones co-authored the famous paper "Attention Is All You Need" when he was working for Google in 2017. The company raised $30M in its seed funding round from Lux Capital and Khosla Ventures.{{Cite web |title=AI開発､｢シリコンバレーに限らず｣ サカナAIに投資のVC - 日本経済新聞 (AI Innovation Isn’t Just Coming from Silicon Valley, Says VC Partner) |url=https://www.nikkei.com/nkd/company/us/MSFT/news/?DisplayType=4&ng=DGXZQOGN0858R008022024000000 |url-status=live |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=日本経済新聞 電子版 (The Nikkei) |language=ja}} The company raised approximately $200M from companies such as Mitsubishi UFJ, SMBC, Mizuho, Itochu, KDDI, Nomura and Nvidia in its series A funding round in 2024.{{Cite news |last=浦中美穂 |date=2024-09-17 |title=サカナＡＩに3メガバンクなど出資 一連の資金調達約300億円 |url=https://jp.reuters.com/markets/global-markets/AM35GW72DRJCBIUALA37Z562VM-2024-09-17/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |work=Reuters |language=ja}}
In January 2024, Sakana AI developed a method to build new AI models by 'breeding' multiple existing models, which it sees as a means to democratise AI development, as this process does not require large computational resources.{{Cite web |date=2024-03-21 |title=AI、複数技術の「掛け合わせ」で進化 Sakana AIが新手法 |url=https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC194P10Z10C24A3000000/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=日本経済新聞 |language=ja}} Sakana AI is also developing a model called the AI Scientist, which automates the entire process of scientific research.{{Cite web |last=Dignan |first=Larry |date=2024-08-14 |title=Sakana AI aims to automate scientific research with genAI |url=https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news/insights/sakana-ai-aims-automate-scientific-research-genai#:~:text=Sakana%20AI%20also%20said%20The,at%20about%20$15%20per%20paper. |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=Constellation Research Inc. |language=en}} The Nikkei estimated the company's value at 19 billion yen in 2024.{{Cite web |date=2024-12-26 |title=リージョナルフィッシュ､企業価値400億円超に 関西未上場スタートアップで首位 |url=https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUF20BQ90Q4A221C2000000/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=日本経済新聞 |language=ja}}