tech
January 29, 2026
Flapping Airplanes and the promise of research-driven AI
A new AI lab called Flapping Airplanes launched yesterday, and a Sequoia partner has an interesting take on why they stand out.
TL;DR
- Flapping Airplanes is a new AI lab launched with $180 million in seed funding.
- The lab's goal is to find a less data-intensive way to train large AI models.
- This represents a shift from the industry's dominant 'scaling' paradigm, which focuses on increasing data and compute power.
- Flapping Airplanes advocates for a 'research-first' approach, prioritizing long-term breakthroughs over short-term gains from compute scaling.
- The funding comes from Google Ventures, Sequoia, and Index.