It looks like the AI race continues as it has been revealed that Elon Musk is quietly building a data center filled with $700 million worth of AI equipment.
It’s an operation big enough to rival OpenAI as Musk’s own startup xAI is expanding with a data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
xAI is planning to run the center along with X, formerly Twitter, with the two firms combining its hardware.
Elon Musk is building a major data center for his AI startup (VINCENT FEURAY/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
The project has been nicknamed Colossus and Musk has claimed it is the largest data center in the world.
The Tesla boss’ AI startup has made a request to the Tennessee Valley Authority for the facility to be provided with 150 megawatts of power.
xAI debuted its own chatbot called Grok on X, with the first version being previewed in November 2023.
Early access to Grok was given to pay X Premium users and it was later revealed that the AI bot would be available exclusively to people who were paying for the higher tier of the Twitter subscription service.
The latest version of the AI, Grok-3, was released earlier this month on February 17.
According to Musk, this version is trained with ‘10x’ more computing power than the previous model.
Hundreds of data annotators have also been purchased to train the chatbot.
The billionaire hopes to use his new data center to put xAI in the position as a competitor that can stand against tech giants like Google and OpenAI.
The billionaire hopes xAI will be able to rival OpenAI (DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Musk recently offered OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman $97.4 billion to buy the company, which was met with a flat ‘no’.
On X, Altman wrote: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk, who bought Twitter back in 2022 for $44 billion, was quick to fire back, calling Altman a ‘swindler’.
There certainly doesn’t appear to be any love lost between the two billionaires as last year, Musk also sued both OpenAI and Altman.
In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of going back on promises to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.
He also claimed that they were breaching a contract by making the move towards profit.
The request by Musk for a court order to block OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company has not yet been ruled on by a judge.
However, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has said that she would not block the case from going to a jury trial.
Featured Image Credit: VINCENT FEURAY/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Elon Musk promises to withdraw $97,000,000,000 bid for OpenAI under one condition
Altman has previously rejected the offer
Elon Musk has said he will abandon his billion-dollar offer to buy artificial intelligence company OpenAI on one condition.
Earlier this week, the Tesla owner and a group of investors made an offer of $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI.
However, Altman gave a savage response on X to Musk’s bid, rejecting it altogether. He also told questioners at a Paris summit on AI that the company is ‘not for sale.’ If anything, the offer has escalated the already heated tensions between Musk and OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman.
The SpaceX owner helped found the AI company over a decade ago but left due to a power struggle.
Now, the tech billionaire has agreed to drop his bid if OpenAI agrees to ‘preserve its mission’ and remain a nonprofit organisation.
In legal documents filed on Wednesday, Musk’s lawyers stated that if OpenAI’s board stops its corporate restructuring, he will withdraw his bid.
Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty
“If OpenAI Inc.’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” the court filing said.
“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”
OpenAI started as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public good, but it has gradually shifted toward a more corporate structure.
Musk founded his AI company xAI in 2023, along with a group of investors. As such, he and his lawyers argue that OpenAI should go back to its original model of being a nonprofit research lab.
If that happened, it would no longer be a business competitor to xAI, which recently secured $6 billion in funding.
The Musk-Altman feud has been going on for many years. While they co-founded OpenAI in 2015, their relationship soured over disagreements about the company’s direction, particularly whether it should be run for profit.
JOEL SAGET / Contributor / Getty
Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018, and since then, things have only gotten messier.
The world’s richest man took another shot at Altman’s leadership on Thursday during a video call at the World Government Summit in Dubai. He compared it to a non-profit dedicated to protecting the Amazon rainforest which became a ‘lumber company that chops down the trees.’
“OpenAI is meant to be [an] open-source nonprofit, and now it is closed,” Musk said at the Summit. “They changed the name to closed for maximum profit, AI closed for voracious profit.”
Altman has previously said Musk is an ‘unhappy’ person motivated by ‘insecurity.’
Meanwhile, Musk has called out the CEO on social media calling him ‘Scam Altman.’
