Key Points
- Elon Musk’s xAI plans to build a supercomputer called “Gigafactory of Compute” projected to be ready by fall 2025.
- xAI raised $6 billion in its latest funding round.
According to new reports from Reuters, citing The Information, xAI, Elon Musk’s AI-focused startup is planning to build a supercomputer called the “Gigafactory of Compute” that should be ready by fall 2025.
The new supercomputer might involve a collaboration with Oracle and aims to enhance the Grok AI chatbot, according to reports.
With this latest development, Musk reportedly aims to surpass its rival GPU clusters in size and capability as well.
In a presentation for investors, the tech mogul revealed that the new supercomputer would use as many as 100,000 Nvidia’s H100 GPUs based on the Hopper architecture. This would make it at least four times larger than the largest existing GPU clusters.
Nvidia’s H100 GPUs are highly sought after in the AI data center chip market, but, as Reuters notes, they are hard to obtain due to high demand.
This substantial hardware investment reflects the scale of xAI’s ambitions. According to the same reports, Musk holds himself personally responsible for delivering the supercomputer on time, as the project is very important for developing large language models.
xAI raises $6 billion in the latest funding round
The other day, it’s been revealed that xAI raised $6 billion in its latest funding round. xAI has the main goal “to understand the true nature of the universe”.
In an official announcement, xAI revealed that the Series B funding round secured $6 billion and it featured the participation of important investors such as Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding.
The funds raised by xAI will reportedly be used to take the startup’s first products to the market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate research and development of future technologies.
xAI is mainly focused on the development of advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and maximally beneficial for humanity.
In a recent announcement on X, Musk also said that he is hiring developers if they believe in understanding the universe, which “requires maximally rigorous pursuit of the truth, without regard to popularity or political corectness.”