Elon Musk’s synthetic intelligence startup xAI revealed that it raised $6 billion in its newest funding spherical because the startup continues to ramp up in its battle in opposition to bitter rival OpenAI.
Musk took a victory lap after saying Monday on his social media platform X that the corporate concluded its Sequence C funding spherical — which is normally the ultimate stage of enterprise capital financing.
“We are gonna need a bigger compute!” Musk wrote, in an obvious reference to the well-known line from “Jaws.”
The necessity for a “bigger compute” is probably going a sign that Musk plans to make use of the funding to construct bigger processing facilities to warehouse tremendous computer systems that might be wanted to coach and run extra refined AI fashions.
The corporate had raised $6 billion in a Sequence B funding spherical in Might at a post-money valuation of $24 billion. In late November, xAI raised one other $5 billion at a $50 billion valuation, in accordance with the Wall Avenue Journal.
Now, it seems xAI raised a much bigger spherical of $6 billion, however Musk didn’t disclose the valuation.
Traders within the newest funding spherical included Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Constancy, Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holdings, the sovereign wealth funds of Oman and Qatar, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, Valor Fairness Companions, Dubai-based Vy Capital and UAE-based MGX, the corporate mentioned.
In its newest announcement, xAI mentioned that it’s coaching Grok 3, the newest model of its chatbot, which was initially scheduled to be obtainable by the top of this yr.
The infusion of money comes as Musk is engaged in an AI arms race in opposition to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, the corporate he co-founded and which is now run by Sam Altman.
Musk, who left OpenAI after dropping an influence battle in opposition to Altman and different co-founders, is suing the corporate and its key monetary backer Microsoft.
He’s alleging that Microsoft and OpenAI, which as of October was valued at round $157 billion, illegally sought to monopolize the marketplace for generative synthetic intelligence and sideline rivals.
