Elon Musk's xAI Seeks $6B to Expand AI Ambitions with Nvidia Chips
Elon Musk's xAI Seeks $6B to Expand AI Ambitions with Nvidia Chips
Elon Musk's xAI is in the process of raising up to $6 billion to acquire 100,000 Nvidia chips for its data center in Memphis. According to reports the artificial intelligence venture is aiming for a valuation of $50 billion. Faber's sources indicate that the funding round, expected to close early next week, will consist of $5 billion from Middle Eastern sovereign funds and an additional $1 billion from various investors, some of whom may be looking to increase their stakes.
This capital will be directed towards purchasing the Nvidia chips, which are crucial for Tesla's Full Self Driving technology that will utilize the new supercomputer in Memphis. Launched in July 2023, Musk's AI company aims to "understand the true nature of the universe," as stated on its website. Last November, xAI introduced a chatbot named Grok, inspired by "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy."
The chatbot was said to have undergone two months of training and boasted real-time internet knowledge. With Grok, xAI intends to compete with major players like OpenAI, which Musk co-founded before leaving due to a disagreement with co-founder Sam Altman in 2018.
The company will also be up against Google’s Bard and Anthropic’s Claude chatbot. Earlier in 2023, Musk reportedly acquired thousands of high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia, essential for developing a large language model.
