‘AI House’ in downtown Seattle will serve as a hub for AI startups and entrepreneurs

Plans are transferring ahead for a brand new hub in downtown Seattle targeted on AI startups, with assist from metropolis and state leaders.

AI2 Incubator, the Seattle-based startup group and enterprise agency, revealed this week that it’ll function and assist fund the brand new middle, billed because the “AI Home.”

The concept is to host a bodily house for AI-related occasions and a spot for founders, buyers, researchers, and nonprofits to work together.

Seattle has a ton of AI talent, however there’s not “a tradition of speaking about it, or gathering at occasions,” mentioned Yifan Zhang, managing director on the AI2 Incubator.

“It doesn’t occur typically sufficient,” she mentioned. “So we’re placing collectively an area the place folks can collect and we are able to actually create that sort of tradition right here.”

GeekWire beforehand reported in regards to the house, which is supported partly by $800,000 in funding Washington state lawmakers accredited earlier this 12 months.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell spoke on the AI2 Incubator’s annual summer time social gathering on Thursday night in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

“It is a huge deal,” mentioned Harrell, who sits on the brand new Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board organized by the Division of Homeland Safety.

The AI Home might assist additional set up Seattle as a frontrunner within the booming subject of AI, and in addition increase the downtown core, which has struggled to completely rebound from the pandemic relative to other U.S. cities.

“It is a solution to convey extra folks downtown, and that’s vastly necessary,” mentioned Markham McIntyre, director of Seattle’s Workplace of Financial Improvement. “The perfect financial improvement play we are able to make is to get downtown buzzing once more.”

McIntyre mentioned the hub may also assist the town study extra in regards to the alternatives and challenges posed by AI because it begins to consider implementing potential new applied sciences.

“We’re focused on fascinated about the town as a purchaser of AI expertise, and the way it can enhance metropolis providers and the way we ship these providers to metropolis constituents,” he mentioned.

Sen. Joe Nguyen, who helped spearhead the funding from the state legislature, mentioned the preliminary concept for the AI Home began with a late night time telephone name final 12 months with colleagues. The conversations targeted on the financial influence of AI — and the way the state and metropolis might place themselves accordingly.

“It was very bootstrappy,” mentioned Nguyen, who spent practically a decade at Microsoft earlier than taking workplace in 2019. 

Over the previous a number of years, Seattle’s startup scene has misplaced quite a few communities that catered to entrepreneurs and operated bodily areas, together with the shock departure of Techstars Seattle earlier this 12 months. However there are new ones popping up, together with Foundations and Founder Nexus. Some say these spaces are important to assist assist entrepreneurs and the town’s startup local weather.

There are additionally some AI-specific neighborhood teams forming, together with AI Tinkerers, a popular meetup that started in Seattle and is now increasing the world over.

The precise location of the AI Home continues to be into account. The plan is to do a “smooth launch” later this 12 months and formally open doorways subsequent 12 months, Zhang mentioned.

Entrepreneurs’ Group (EO), a world group led by startup vet Dave Parker, will function the nonprofit accomplice for the AI Home. It’s serving to facilitate the lease for the bodily house, Parker advised GeekWire.

“It’s an effective way for us as a worldwide nonprofit to attach with the chapter’s dwelling market,” Parker mentioned.

The AI2 Incubator runs an incubator, which helps nurture budding startups, in addition to a enterprise fund that raised $30 million in recent capital final 12 months. In 2022 the AI2 Incubator spun off from its unique dwelling, the Allen Institute for Synthetic Intelligence, right into a separate entity.

Zhang, who beforehand began two corporations earlier than becoming a member of AI2 Incubator final 12 months, couldn’t disclose particulars on how a lot the group is spending to function the AI Home however mentioned it’s “a major precedence for us.”