On Tuesday, AI company Recursive Superintelligence announced a $410 million compute deal with Amazon Web Services. The company emerged from stealth in May with $650 million in funding and is focused on building open-ended self-improving systems, a compute-intensive approach to AI research. The multi-year deal is designed to provide flexibility as the company scales those systems. Recursive’s $410 million outlay represents the bulk of its fundraising to date, but CEO Socher emphasized on a call with TechCrunch that he expects it to be the first of many such deals, calling it “likely going to be one of the smallest compute deals we’re going to sign in the next few years.”

Recursive’s emphasis on self-improving AI systems means much of the budget that would traditionally go toward headcount and operations is instead directed into compute, as the company seeks to automate its own product development process. “For us, it’s less about headcount and more about agent count,” Socher said. There is no investment component to Amazon’s involvement, in contrast to major labs’ habit of hybrid investment arrangements. However, the sheer scale of the commitment allows AWS to commit significant resources to supporting Recursive’s unique needs, which may help draw in other foundation-level AI companies going forward. “Part of the agreement is that we’re going to co-develop infrastructure purpose-built for these types of company,” said Jason Bennett, VP for startups and venture capital at AWS.

Recursive self-improvement (RSI) has long been seen as an inflection point for AI, with some expecting an explosion of progress once AI can be improved without human involvement. As more labs and companies pursue the idea, the specific requirements have become ambiguous, with some predicting imminent breakthroughs while others characterize self-improvement as more of a continuum. In Recursive’s case, the goal is to use RSI to develop actual products, and Socher expects to release the earliest examples before the end of the year. “We are excited to build like really amazing products that people can use, and you will see those within a few months, not within a few quarters or years,” Socher says. “In October or so, you’ll see some actually tangible, useful things that you’ll be able to play around with.” The article notes that TechCrunch may earn a small commission through links in the article, but this does not affect editorial independence.