Elon Musk Has Ambitious Plans for xAI After $6B USD in Funding Round
The startup is reported to be working on a “supercomputer” to power its Grok chatbot.
Elon Musk’s xAI has raised $6 billion USD in a recent Series B round. The company, which was launched just last year, says it plans to use the money to “continue on [a] steep trajectory of progress” in the AI space.
For those unfamiliar with Musk’s background in AI, the entrepreneur joined OpenAI in its early days as a co-chairman in 2015. While he initially planned to contribute $1 billion USD to the startup, he stepped down from the board in 2018 after it declined to merge with Tesla.
xAI was announced in July 2023 and debuted its first software just a few months after, a chatbot named Grok. Advanced versions of Grok featuring image recognition and processing were rolled out this past March and the first version of Grok has since been released as an open-source model
It was only earlier this month that xAI was reported to be seeking billions in funding. According to the company’s announcement, the funds were invested by major firms including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and his conglomerate Kingdom Holding were also among xAI’s key investors.
xAI now plans to use the funds to take its first products to market and continue researching and developing its AI infrastructure. It’ll also be hiring a variety of engineers with expertise in specialties spanning AI, data, mobile, web, software and systems.
The Information reported that Musk showed investors a presentation on Saturday that included plans for a “supercomputer” to power Grok. The reported computer would use NVIDIA chips and be developed with the aim of having it running by fall of next year.
