Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, revealing that it has successfully raised $6 billion. This funding involved at least 77 participants, bringing xAI's total funding to $12 billion. Notable investment firms such as Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz are believed to be involved, with the Qatar Investment Authority also listed in this round of financing.
Founded just a year ago, xAI has rapidly developed and launched its flagship AI model Grok, which has been gradually integrated into various features of the social platform X. Grok is known for its "rebellious character," with Musk emphasizing its pursuit of truth and efforts to reduce bias, although some evidence suggests that the model still exhibits ideological leanings.
The company is actively catching up with competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic, planning to launch an independent consumer application in December, and has already released an API in October to allow third parties to integrate Grok. xAI's strategy extends beyond AI development, leveraging data resources from Tesla and SpaceX, and has even provided customer support services for Starlink.
Despite its rapid growth, xAI faces challenges. Tesla shareholders are concerned about Musk's allocation of resources to xAI, fearing it may distract from the company's core business. Nevertheless, xAI has already increased its annual revenue to approximately $100 million and plans to expand its computing capabilities at the Memphis data center, aiming for 100,000 Nvidia GPUs in the future.
Compared to OpenAI and Anthropic, xAI's funding scale is relatively small. Anthropic has raised a total of $13.7 billion, while OpenAI has reached $17.9 billion. However, Musk appears undeterred, accusing OpenAI of unfair competition through lawsuits and firmly believing that the data advantages of the X platform will become xAI's unique competitive edge.
As a rapidly growing startup, xAI has quickly expanded from just a handful of employees at its inception to over 100 employees, moving into the former OpenAI office in San Francisco, showcasing Musk's consistent entrepreneurial passion and expansion ambitions.
