Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk’s startup xAI stated it had raised $6 billion from traders in its newest funding spherical, because it battles stiff competitors within the synthetic intelligence market.

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The agency, whose flagship product is the Grok chatbot, garnered assist from US enterprise capitalists, chipmakers NVIDIA and AMD, and funding funds from Saudi Arabia and Qatar amongst others.

Musk has repeatedly warned that AI poses a danger to human civilisation, however he’s pushing onerous for an even bigger slice of funding within the sector and xAI already raised $6 billion in May.

The firm is now one of many world’s most respected startups with an estimated $50 billion valuation, although nonetheless dwarfed by chief competitor OpenAI’s estimated $157 billion.

Despite the sky-high estimates, critics have identified that AI companies are burning by money and nonetheless don’t have any clear path to profitability.

‘True nature of the universe’

Announcing the funding on Monday, xAI stated it might use the money injection to “ship groundbreaking products that will be used by billions of people”.

It would additionally “accelerate the research and development of future technologies enabling the company’s mission to understand the true nature of the universe”.

Musk, who additionally acts as boss of SpaceX and Tesla and is a chief backer of US president-elect Donald Trump, wrote on his X account that “a lot of compute is needed” to energy AI merchandise.

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He launched the corporate in July 2023 shortly after he signed an open letter calling for a pause within the growth of highly effective AI fashions.

Musk is at the moment taking authorized motion in opposition to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which he co-founded as a non-profit in 2015 earlier than leaving in 2018, alleging that its conversion to a for-profit firm breaks legally binding commitments.

By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse