xAI (company)

This article is about a US company. For other uses, see Xai.

X.AI Corp.
xAI
Company typePrivate
IndustryArtificial intelligence
FoundedMarch 9, 2023; 19 months ago (2023-03-09)[a]
FounderElon Musk
Headquarters
San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S.
Key people
ProductsGrok, PromptIDE[2]
Number of employees
c. 100 (2024)[3]
Websitex.ai
This article is part of
a series about
Elon Musk
Personal
Companies
In popular culture
Related
Elon Musk's signature

X.AI Corp.,[4][5] doing business as xAI, is an American startup company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). Founded by Elon Musk in March 2023, its stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe".[6]

History

[edit]

xAI was founded by Musk[7][8][9] in Nevada[4] on March 9, 2023, and has since been headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.[10] Igor Babuschkin, formerly associated with Google's DeepMind unit, was recruited by Musk to be Chief Engineer.[11]

Musk officially announced the formation of xAI on July 12, 2023.[12][13] He linked the date (7 + 12 + 23 = 42) to the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams,[14] in which a supercomputer calculates that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42; and to the company's mission "to understand the universe".[15][6]

In December 2023, in a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, xAI revealed that it had raised US$134.7 million in outside funding out of a total of up to $1 billion.[16][17] Despite the filing, Musk later claimed via X that xAI was not seeking any funding.[18]

In May 2024, xAI was reported to be looking for $6 billion of funding.[19] Later that same month, the company secured the support of various venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Tribe Capital.[20][21]

In May 2024, Musk predicted that AI will make most jobs obsolete, requiring a high universal income.[22]

In June 2024, The Greater Memphis Chamber announced xAI is planning on building the world's largest supercomputer in Memphis, TN.[23] The supercomputer is planned to be the most advanced AI model when it becomes fully operational in December 2024. Local government in Memphis has voiced concerns regarding the increased usage of electricity, 150 megawatts of power at peak, and while the agreement with the city is being worked out, the company has deployed 14 VoltaGrid gas generators to temporarily enhance the power supply.[24] Environmental advocates claim that the gas-burning turbines emit large quantities of gases causing air pollution, and that xAI has been operating the turbines illegally without the necessary permits.[25][26]

Musk diverted a large number of Nvidia chips which had been ordered by Tesla, Inc. to X and xAI.[27]

Products

[edit]

While xAI's stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe", one of its immediate objectives is to create an AI that is capable of advanced mathematical reasoning, something not found in current models.[28]

On November 4, 2023, xAI unveiled Grok, an AI chatbot that is integrated with X. xAI stated that when the bot is out of beta, it will only be available to X's Premium+ subscribers.[29][30]

On November 6, 2023, xAI released PromptIDE, an integrated development environment designed for prompt engineering and interpretability research, offering tools like a Python code editor and rich analytics to empower users in exploring and refining prompts for large language models like Grok-1.[31][32][33]

On March 2024, Grok was made available to all X Premium subscribers; it was previously available only to Premium+ subscribers.[34][35]

On March 17, 2024, xAI released Grok-1 as open source.[36][37]

On March 29, 2024, Grok-1.5 was announced, with "improved reasoning capabilities" and a context length of 128,000 tokens.[38]

On April 12, 2024, Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V) was announced. Grok-1.5V is able to process a wide variety of visual information, including documents, diagrams, graphs, screenshots, and photographs.[39][40]

On August 14, 2024, Grok-2 was made available to X Premium subscribers.[41] It is the first Grok model with image generation capabilities.[42]

On October 21, 2024, xAI released an API.[43]

Notes

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  1. ^ The company was incorporated on this date. It was not officially announced until July 12, 2023.

References

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  1. ^ a b Beltran, Luisa (November 20, 2023). "xAI org chart: All the top power players at Elon Musk's new OpenAI competitor". Fortune. Archived from the original on November 20, 2023.
  2. ^ "PromptIDE". x.ai. Archived from the original on November 15, 2023. Retrieved November 11, 2023.
  3. ^ Mathews, Jessica (June 28, 2024). "One of the original employees at Elon Musk's xAI has left and returned to OpenAI". Fortune. Archived from the original on June 28, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "X.AI Corp". OpenCorporates. Archived from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
  5. ^ "Privacy policy". x.ai. Archived from the original on November 19, 2023. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
  6. ^ a b "xAI: Understand the Universe". x.ai. Archived from the original on August 3, 2023. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  7. ^ "Elon Musk launches xAI in challenge to dominance of ChatGPT owner". The Financial Times. July 12, 2023. Archived from the original on July 12, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  8. ^ Bhattacharya, Suryathapa (July 12, 2023). "Elon Musk Launches xAI, His New Artificial-Intelligence Company". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 12, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  9. ^ Markman, Jon. "Elon Musk Unveils X.ai: A Game-Changer For Investors". Forbes. Archived from the original on October 18, 2023. Retrieved October 24, 2023.
  10. ^ Anirban Ghoshal (July 13, 2023). "Elon Musk launches xAI to take on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI". Computer World. Archived from the original on July 18, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  11. ^ Isaacson, Walter (September 12, 2023). Elon Musk. Simon & Schuster. pp. 605–606. ISBN 978-1-9821-8128-4. Archived from the original on November 26, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  12. ^ Vynck, Gerrit De (July 15, 2023). "Musk's new AI company, xAI, will aim to solve scientific mysteries". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on July 17, 2023. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
  13. ^ Mark, Charles. "Openaiinsiders". Retrieved November 29, 2023.
  14. ^ Gairola, Ananya. "How Elon Musk's xAI Launch Date Pays Tribute To Douglas Adam's 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'". Benzinga. Archived from the original on September 23, 2023. Retrieved September 9, 2023.
  15. ^ Musk, Elon [@elonmusk] (July 12, 2023). "And what are the most fundamental unknown questions?" (Tweet). Archived from the original on August 6, 2023. Retrieved September 1, 2023 – via Twitter.
  16. ^ Silberling, Amanda. "Elon Musk is looking to raise $1 billion for xAI". Archived from the original on December 6, 2023. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  17. ^ Primack, Dan (December 6, 2023). "How Elon Musk may be spinning up a Plan B to save X". axios.com. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  18. ^ "Elon Musk says his AI firm xAI is not raising funds 'right now'". reuters.com. December 6, 2023. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  19. ^ "Elon's AI venture being sold as part of a "Muskonomy"". Axios. May 18, 2024.
  20. ^ "Elon Musk's xAI secures new backing from Andreessen, Lightspeed, Sequoia and Tribe". Financial Times. Retrieved May 24, 2024.
  21. ^ "Musk's xAI seeking to raise $6 bln in Andreessen Horowitz-backed funding, FT reports". Reuters. May 23, 2024.
  22. ^ Tomchak, David (May 30, 2024). "Elon Musk: Tesla CEO warns of the risks of AI to our jobs—while raising $6bn for xAI". Archived from the original on May 30, 2024. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
  23. ^ "Musk to Locate xAI Supercomputer in Memphis". MemphisFlyer. Retrieved June 6, 2024.
  24. ^ Edwards, Benj (July 24, 2024). "Elon Musk claims he is training "the world's most powerful AI by every metric"". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  25. ^ "Musk's xAI operating gas turbines without permits at data center, environmental group says". Reuters. August 28, 2024.
  26. ^ "Environmentalists urge health department to take action on xAI". Memphis Local, Sports, Business & Food News | Daily Memphian. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
  27. ^ Kolodny, Lora. "Elon Musk ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI". cnbc.com. CNBC. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
  28. ^ Schreckinger, Ben (July 17, 2023). "Elon Musk's liberal-trolling AI plan has a core audience". Politico. Archived from the original on October 11, 2023. Retrieved July 19, 2023.
  29. ^ Neowin, Paul Hill (November 4, 2023). "Elon Musk gives a glimpse at xAI's Grok chatbot". Neowin. Archived from the original on November 4, 2023. Retrieved November 4, 2023.
  30. ^ "Elon Musk Says His New AI Bot 'Grok' Will Have Sarcasm and Access to X Information". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 4, 2023. Retrieved November 4, 2023.
  31. ^ "Announcing PromptIDE". x.ai. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  32. ^ "xAI Launches PromptIDE for Advanced AI Prompt Engineering with Grok". Maginative. November 7, 2023. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  33. ^ Razzaq, Asif (November 6, 2023). "xAI Launches PromptIDE: A New Frontier in Prompt Engineering and Artificial Intelligence AI Transparency". MarkTechPost. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  34. ^ "Elon Musk Makes Grok AI Available to All Paying X Subscribers: What to Know". CNET. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  35. ^ Mehta, Ivan (April 6, 2024). "X makes Grok chatbot available to premium subscribers". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  36. ^ "Elon Musk's Grok-1 goes open-source: What it means for users". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  37. ^ David, Emilia (March 18, 2024). "xAI open sources Grok". The Verge. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  38. ^ "Announcing Grok-1.5". x.ai. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  39. ^ "Grok-1.5 Vision Preview". x.ai. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  40. ^ "Grok-1.5 Vision: First Multimodal Model from Elon Musk's xAI". encord.com. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  41. ^ Mehta, Ivan (August 14, 2024). "xAI releases Grok-2, adds image generation on X". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  42. ^ Weatherbed, Jess (August 14, 2024). "xAI's new Grok-2 chatbots bring AI image generation to X". The Verge. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  43. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (October 21, 2024). "xAI, Elon Musk's AI startup, launches an API". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
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