With Tesla, SpaceX, and even X (formerly Twitter), and his entry into politics, Elon Musk already has a lot to do. This did not prevent him from launching his own AI company, xAI, which intends to compete with OpenAI. To give itself the means to achieve this ambition, the company has just called on hand-picked investors. Let’s take stock.
The crème de la crème of Silicon Valley
The company has therefore raised $6 billion according to information sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission this Thursday. In detail, funds such as Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz participated, as did the Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Each was required to pay at least $77,593.
This brings the total raised by xAI since its inception to $12 billion, while it is targeting a valuation of $50 billion, according to information from the American press. These amounts may seem colossal to ordinary people, but you should know that the operation of generative AI is extremely expensive. Far from stopping there, the firm promises new fundraising soon.
What are xAI’s plans?
Concretely, Elon Musk’s company should use this windfall to perfect its Grok model which could be enriched with new features. It is also planned to launch a general public application in December which would compete with ChatGPT. It is an understatement to say that training and maintaining such a tool can be expensive.
In its data center in Memphis, Tennessee, Nvidia hopes to soon have 100,000 GPUs. Enough to get a head start on the competition. We know in particular that these technologies are very expensive in energy and you will therefore have to take out the checkbook to make them work.
A new AI-boosted video game studio?
xAI just received approval from the Memphis Regional Power Authority to use 150 MW of additional electricity. This is no small feat, as it can potentially cover the needs of 100,000 households.
Among the company’s other somewhat strange projects, we can also cite Elon Musk’s idea of creating video games. He recently announced: “Too many game studios are owned by big companies”. xAI will therefore “make games great again!” ». A play on words taken from Donald Trump’s slogan. To find out more about these plans which may never see the light of day, click here.
