Elon Musk quietly starts X.AI, a new artificial intelligence company to challenge OpenAI

Elon Musk is getting ready to launch a brand new synthetic intelligence (AI) startup, X.AI, that may compete instantly with OpenAI, in line with a bombshell report revealed by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

The story reveals that Musk included X.AI in Nevada final month and has approved the sale of 100 million shares for the privately held firm. In line with state filings, Musk is the only director of the brand new firm; Jared Birchall, a confidant and the director of Musk’s household workplace, is its secretary.

Earlier within the day, the Financial Times published its personal story on Musk’s intent to start out a brand new AI firm. The story claimed that Musk has been assembling a workforce of AI researchers and engineers, with recruitment efforts extending to workers of main AI firms resembling Alphabet-owned DeepMind.

In line with the Monetary Occasions, Musk has talked to a number of buyers in SpaceX and Tesla about backing his new AI startup. “A bunch of persons are investing in it…it’s actual and they’re enthusiastic about it,” an individual with direct information of the discussions advised the Monetary Occasions.

The title of the brand new firm echoes Musk’s ambition to create an every part app referred to as X, which he announced on Twitter final yr. Musk not too long ago modified Twitter’s title to X Corp and moved its incorporation from Delaware to Nevada. X Corp has a mum or dad firm named X Holdings Corp.

Musk’s new enterprise comes as he has expressed issues concerning the potential risks of synthetic intelligence and the necessity for regulation and oversight. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with a bunch of distinguished tech entrepreneurs and researchers, with the purpose of making synthetic intelligence that might profit humanity with out inflicting hurt or being influenced by company or political agendas.

In line with a latest Semafor report, Musk reportedly tried and didn’t take over OpenAI in 2018. He then left OpenAI’s board citing a possible battle of curiosity along with his work at Tesla, which additionally develops AI expertise for its self-driving automobiles. Musk has additionally criticized OpenAI for pursuing synthetic common intelligence (AGI). That is the flexibility of machines to carry out any mental job that people can.

On Tuesday, Business Insider reported that the Tesla billionaire had bought roughly 10,000 graphics processing items (GPU) for his new AI undertaking. Tech firms usually use GPUs to deal with the computational workload required by newer AI expertise.

VentureBeat has reached out to OpenAI and Twitter for touch upon Musk’s new AI firm. We are going to replace this story if and after we hear again.

Replace 5:48 PT: OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman has issued a one-word assertion in response to the Wall Road Journal report through his Twitter account: “Regarding.”