The Blubber

Elon Musk's xAI is reportedly in the process of raising up to $6 billion to fund the purchase of 100,000 Nvidia chips for a new data center in Memphis. Sources suggest that the artificial intelligence venture is targeting a valuation of $50 billion. According to Faber, the funding round—anticipated to close early next week—will include $5 billion from Middle Eastern sovereign funds and an additional $1 billion from various investors, some of whom are looking to expand their stakes.

The funds will primarily be used to acquire the Nvidia chips, which are critical for powering Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology that will utilize the Memphis-based supercomputer. xAI, launched in July 2023, describes its mission as seeking to "understand the true nature of the universe," as outlined on its website. In November 2023, the company introduced a chatbot named Grok, inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Grok reportedly underwent two months of training and is designed with real-time internet access, positioning xAI as a competitor to industry leaders like OpenAI, which Musk co-founded before departing in 2018 due to disagreements with co-founder Sam Altman.

The company will also compete with Google's Bard and Anthropic's Claude chatbots. Earlier in 2023, Musk reportedly purchased thousands of high-performance Nvidia GPUs, which are essential for developing xAI's large language model and advancing its AI capabilities.