A star Chinese researcher laid off by Facebook owner Meta Platforms has co-founded a start-up focused on self-improving artificial intelligence systems, joining a wave of US and Chinese firms developing models capable of autonomously refining their own code and reasoning.

Tian Yuandong, former research scientist director at Meta’s FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) team, launched Recursive Superintelligence alongside seven other co-founders. The company said on Wednesday it had raised more than US$650 million at a US$4.65 billion valuation.

The round was led by venture capital firms GV and Greycroft, with “major participation” from US chipmaking giants Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, the start-up said.

Often referred to as “recursive self-improvement”, AI systems that can automate the AI research and development process have long been seen as the holy grail of AI research.

A company that can first achieve this milestone would, in theory, be able to rapidly extend its lead over competitors as its AI development efforts accelerated exponentially.

“[T]he fastest path to superintelligence will be realised by AI that recursively improves itself, and does so via open-ended algorithms that drive endless innovation,” the company said in a statement.