Just a year old the start-up has created its own large language model (LLM) and this funding round is one of the biggest yet in the rapidly growing field of AI. The company has been value at an impressive $18bn, according to Musk.
Because of the huge amounts of computing power and energy needed to train LLMs, the development of generative AI is proving very expensive and Musk said that the money raised would be used to take xAI’s first products to market, as well as build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate research and development.
The funding has come from many investors who have backed Musk’s other ventures - such as Tesla and SpaceX - and includes the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Kingdom Holding, a Saudi investor run by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family.
While Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI he has taken legal action against the company’s management accusing Sam Altman and other executives of “breached the founding agreement” of the company. He has accused them of pursuing private commercial success rather than working to benefit humanity.
The market for generative AI is becoming increasingly competitive what with Microsoft, Google, Meta, Anthropic and Mistral all competing in this space.
Musk tweeted that the company has a “mission of understanding the universe, which requires maximally rigorous pursuit of the truth, without regard to popularity or political correctness”.
While it will be interesting to see what xAI brings to the table, why do I find that kind of statement so disturbing from the owner of X?
