Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and innovator, has once again made headlines with the announcement of his latest venture, X.AI. The company, which was incorporated in Nevada last month, is dedicated to artificial intelligence, with Musk as its director and Jared Birchall, director of Musk's family office, listed as its secretary.
Speculation about Musk's interest in the AI space had been circulating for several days, with reports that he had purchased thousands of graphic processing units (GPUs) to power a new generative AI product. There were also reports that he sought funding from investors of his other companies, SpaceX and Tesla, to get X.AI off the ground.
During a recent interview on Twitter Spaces, Musk was asked about the GPUs he had purchased, but he made no mention of X.AI or his plans to create an AI firm. However, the name of the company matches the branding of the X Corp. name he has assigned to Twitter and the "X" label he's applied to his vision of an "everything app."
Musk has been openly critical of OpenAI, the AI organization he co-founded in 2015 but left in 2018, and recently signed a letter calling for a pause on "giant AI experiments." OpenAI has been making waves with technologies like ChatGPT and GPT-4, and has helped push Microsoft and Google to integrate AI tools more deeply into their products.
With the creation of X.AI, it seems that Musk is doubling down on his interest in AI and will be looking to compete with OpenAI in the space. It remains to be seen what X.AI's products and services will be, but given Musk's track record of disruptive innovation, it's sure to be something exciting.