'OpenAI rival' Musk's xAI raises US$20 billion in Series E

US$5 billion more than planned

"AI investment war Round 2 begins"

xAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) company led by Elon Musk (pictured), secured US$20 billion (about 26 trillion won), becoming the first major AI company this year to announce a large investment. The funds will be used for data center expansion and AI model training. Following last year's record fundraising by global AI companies and with OpenAI and Anthropic's listings expected this year, competition for capital in the global AI industry is expected to intensify.

xAI announced on its blog on the 6th (local time) that it had secured US$20 billion in its Series E round. That is US$5 billion more than originally targeted. The Qatar Investment Authority and others participated, and NVIDIA was named among the strategic investors.

xAI said, "With this funding, we will build world-class infrastructure to accelerate AI development for billions of users and support research to advance our core mission of 'understanding the universe.'" Here, 'understanding the universe' refers to an AI philosophy centered on the pursuit of truth. xAI is developing the next-generation generative AI model 'Grok 5' and is considering entering the games and robotics sectors.

xAI is expanding the 'Colossus' supercomputer complex in Tennessee, USA, as AI infrastructure. Colossus 1 is operational, and Colossus 2 is under construction. Colossus 1 and 2 have computing resources equivalent to about 1 million of NVIDIA's H100s. Recently, it purchased a third site in Mississippi to build an additional data center.

Industry observers said this investment marks the start of round two of the AI capital race. Last year, global AI companies raised more than US$150 billion, the largest ever. OpenAI, valued at US$500 billion, recently closed US$41 billion in funding. There were also reports that up to US$100 billion in fundraising is targeted for Q1 this year.

Anthropic raised US$13 billion in September last year, giving it a valuation of US$183 billion. xAI did not disclose its valuation that day, but the industry estimates it at around US$230 billion.

Young Choi reporter youngchoi@hankyung.com