Strategic investment commitment from Nvidia and Cisco
‘Grook’ faces regulatory pressure over investigations in UK, India and more as controversy intensifies over creation of sexual images
XAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded by Elon Musk, has secured a total of $20 billion (about 29 trillion won) in new funding.
xAI said on the 6th (local time) that it had raised $20 billion through its recently concluded Series E investment. The amount is significantly higher than the initial target of $15 billion.
The investment round included Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management and Research Company and Barron Capital Group as investors. Nvidia and Cisco Investments participated as strategic investors.
“NVIDIA and Cisco Investments continue to support the expansion of their computing infrastructure and the construction of the world’s largest GPU cluster,” explained xAI.
xAI plans to use this investment to expand its data center and grocery model. Regarding the new generation AI model “Grook 5”, which is currently being learned, xAI emphasized: “We are preparing to launch innovative products that will change people’s lives, work and play methods. »
In this investment, xAI did not disclose the specific investment amount of each investment company and the proportion of bonds and stocks. However, Bloomberg News previously reported that Nvidia plans to invest up to $2 billion (approximately 2.9 trillion won).
According to Bloomberg, xAI plans to split the financing into equity investments worth about $7.5 billion and debt worth up to $12.5 billion, which will be invested in special purpose companies (SPVs).
Meanwhile, the investment attraction announcement came amid recent controversy over the stability of xAI. Recently, Grok created sexual images without the consent of the parties, and recently controversy has spread as images depicting children have circulated. In this regard, regulatory authorities of each country, including the European Union (EU), India and Malaysia, have launched an investigation.
On the 6th (local time), the British government came forward and demanded a quick resolution to the problem. “Services and operators have a clear obligation to act appropriately, which does not restrict freedom of expression, but respects the law,” said UK Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology Liz Kender.