U.K.-based artificial intelligence startup Ineffable Intelligence raised $1.1 billion in new funding, putting the company's valuation at $5.1 billion.

The AI lab, founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, aims to build a "superlearner" using reinforcement learning. The system acquires abilities through experimentation rather than training on human-produced examples, its website states.

The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Major investors include Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, the British Business Bank, and Sovereign AI, the U.K.'s new state-backed AI venture fund, Wired reported.

Silver is a professor at University College London. He also previously ran DeepMind's reinforcement learning group for more than a decade. During that period, he worked on systems that focused on building reinforcement learning and co-led projects that played Atai games directly from ...