Elon Musk is a character as unique as he is mysterious, and not well understood by everyone. This is visible not only in his behavior and subsequent decisions, but also in his approach to many projects and technological innovations. It was similar in the case of artificial intelligence and the situation in which he called for a temporary cessation of work on its development.
For some time now, however, one of the world’s most media billionaires has been developing his own AI model called Grok. It may not be as recognizable and popular as ChatGPT or Gemini AI, but it still shows Musk’s aspirations in this area.
According to the latest data presented by the Wall Street Journal the owner of the X platform plans to take billions of dollars to develop its artificial intelligence. The amount is huge, but in this case the game is worth the candle.
xAI, or Elon Musk’s own artificial intelligence
It is worth first explaining what xAI is. We are talking specifically about a technological start-up founded by Elon Musk himself in March 2023. The company’s stated goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe.”
This in itself may seem a bit too pompous and lofty to some, but for people who have been following Musk’s activities for a long time, such phrases are nothing out of the ordinary. Within a few months of its founding, specifically in November 2023, an AI chatbot called Grok was presented.
Within a year of the presentation of the first version of this model, we have seen two new revisions, and the last one – Grok-2 – was made available to X Premium members in August this year. It is also the first model from this company that has the option of generating images.
So far, xAI has initiated the construction of the world’s largest data center in Memphis (Tennessee), where employees will train new versions of its AI model. Full functionality of this plant is to be achieved in December 2024 and will be one of the most advanced places for work on artificial intelligence in the world.
Elon Musk is counting on billions for xAI and shows that he can develop this technology
Sources familiar with the matter and Musk’s activities report that xAI is currently in talks with investors regarding the company’s next round of financing. We are talking specifically about support that would help further develop and support the company’s activities. The company’s owners hope to collect this amount and add it to the company’s current valuation of $40 billion.
Relatively recently, Musk announced that the mentioned data center will soon be expanded from 100,000 to 200,000 graphics processing units. graphics processors. This caught the attention of NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang himself, who praised the speed with which the billionaire was able to create and expand his data center.
As if that wasn’t enough, last week xAI released a tool with which developers can create and share applications using Grok. In this way, they can additionally gain additional sources of income for their work, which is, of course, a tempting option for many of them.
It cannot be ruled out that in this way Musk wants to show potential investors that the funds invested will not be wasted. Presenting one of your projects and working on the development of your center is intended to prove ambitious development plans and, consequently, a significant return on the invested money.
For now, however, discussions about financing are at an early stage. This means that a lot may change by the end of the project, or none of what Musk envisages will come to fruition. However, it cannot be ruled out that the billionaire will manage to attract very specific shareholders.
xAI is not alone in this race
Of course, xAI is not an isolated case of a company attracting investor attention. Quite recently, we wrote here about the successful financing round organized by OpenAI. This start-up succeeded then raise exactly $6.6 billion, reaching a valuation of $150 billion.
In addition, it is also worth mentioning Perplexity, a start-up that researches artificial intelligence. This entity is also currently conducting talks on obtaining new financing. This would double its valuation to more than $8 billion.
So we can say that the crowd in this sector of the industry is quite large, and investors’ resources are not infinite. All entities must therefore fight with each other and try to attract the attention of those who can provide them with financing. However, the question remains whether they will succeed and what the final effect will be.
There is no answer to this question yet and perhaps there won’t be for a long time. After all, the development of AI is extremely unpredictable and it is difficult to make any judgments about what will happen in this market.
