Elon Musk raises $6 billion to develop his own AI

Musk claims that xAI is valued at $18 billion. He aims to create his own AI supercomputer by the end of next year.

Here's What We Know

Last summer, Elon Musk founded xAI. Recently, he announced that he had raised $6 billion in funding. He noted that these funds will help bring the startup's first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate research and development of future technologies.

So far, xAI has launched Grok, a more sophisticated version of OpenAI ChatGPT available via X, where the chatbot is currently only available to X Premium subscribers.

The funding came from several sources, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. It was previously known that xAI planned to raise up to USD 1 billion, but it has significantly exceeded this amount.

The hardware required to develop artificial intelligence is expensive. The upcoming Blackwell B200 graphics cards with Nvidia's artificial intelligence cost between $30,000 and $40,000 each. According to The Information, xAI will need 100,000 Nvidia H100 chips for its supercomputer.

Elon Musk also plans to launch a new data centre by autumn 2025.

Continuing the AI race for chips, talent, and technology will not be cheap. Many large tech companies have already invested billions in AI startups like Anthropic, in addition to their own developments at Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

In addition to xAI and OpenAI, the Space X founder plans to create products outside of Tesla in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics if he gains more control.

Tesla shareholders will begin voting this week on whether to return Musk's $56 billion pay package ahead of the annual meeting on 13 June.

Source: The Verge