Elon Musk launches X.AI, a start-up dedicated to artificial intelligence

Objective to compete with OpenAI

Elon Musk, entrepreneur and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has created a new artificial intelligence (AI) company called X.AI. Based in Nevada, the startup aims to compete with OpenAI, the California-based company that designed ChatGPT, an AI program capable of interacting with humans and producing texts on demand. The success of ChatGPT has caused a real race for this high potential technology.

Recruiting experts for X.ai

According to anonymous sources, Elon Musk recently recruited Igor Babuschkin and Manuel Kroiss, two AI experts who worked for DeepMind, the AI arm of Alphabet (Google’s parent company). In addition, he would have also bought 10,000 graphics processors, necessary to train language models, the foundation of generative AI systems.

Call for a break in research

Despite Elon Musk’s investment in this field, he signed a call last month to pause research on next-generation AI. In this call, the signatories mention various risks related to this technology and question the relevance of developing non-human minds. These experts believe that these AIs could eventually surpass us in numbers and intelligence.

History with OpenAI

Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left it in 2018. Since then, he has been critical of the company, including that AI is trained to be “woke” (a term for a fringe of the American left) and to “lie.”

The “X” symbol in Elon Musk’s projects

Liking to cultivate mystery, the “X” symbol is a recurring motif in Elon Musk’s projects. As a proof, he recently changed the name of Twitter to “X Corp” and talked about his vision of an all-purpose application (messaging, social network, financial services…), similar to WeChat in China. Moreover, the name of one of his children, X Æ A-12, also reflects this preference.

X.ai and its AI Technology Race

If X.AI succeeds in competing with OpenAI, it will add a new player to the already intense competition between technology companies to develop more powerful AI models. Google and Amazon have already announced initiatives in the AI space. In the future, it is certain that even more companies will be added to the list.