Elon is all-in with AI, and his Xai project is currently trying to compete with Meta, Openai, Google and more.
The next big factor is Xai's new image and video generation options, called “Imagine.”
And according to the new splash screen of the Grok app, it comes soon.
As can be seen in this screenshot (posted by Jonah Manzano), Xai is notifying Grok users that they can join the waitlist for “fastest image and video generation experience.”
So, I don't know if people really want to inevitably make the fastest tool on this frontline, but it's the best tool for translating text prompts into real images and videos.
Elon is confident in that regard, but he has posted a six-second video example from Xai's current generation model.
Elon even claims that X will effectively bring Vine back to AI forms via an influx of AI-generated clips, as he is sure people will prefer his new “imagination” option.
It may be interesting, but it's not as much a return to the vine as the introduction of AI tools from another text to video.
This is not functionally new given that Google Veo offers the same thing, and Openai, Meta and Tiktok are all developing their own text-to-video models.
Still, Elon always wants to declare his version the best and the leader of the pack. And, at least now, he could make some point about it, given the amount of processing power that Xai appears to have been able to activate through the Colossus data center.
According to the mask, Xai is currently working 230K NVIDIA H100 GPU Various facilities provide power to the latest GROK models. Nvidia's chips become an important component of AI development, improving the performance of AI systems.
For comparison, Meta is reportedly around 350,000 NVIDIA H100 chipalthough not all can be used for meta AI processing, Openai runs around 200k.
At least now, Xai could actually make the most powerful AI models work, but considering Meta has more capacity and is developing its own AI chip to further expand the system, it seems unlikely that this is still the case.
Tesla, another business in Musk, has signed a new contract with Samsung to develop custom chips.
Still, it appears that Xai struggles to compete in a wider market, taking into account the early invoker advantages that Openai has gained and the near-limitless ability of meta.
I thought that relationships with the US government would be an important play in this respect through Musk's friendship with President Trump, as XAI can build custom AI systems that match the requirements of US government customers. But then Musk turned on Trump, and Trump then threatened to cut all government contracts with Musk's company.
So, at first glance, the bridge was burned. But again, Xai signed a $200 million deal with the Pentagon just two weeks ago. This will provide the Department of Defense with AI tools.
So, everything that Elon vs Trump's is exaggerated, and Musk could still use his involvement with the government to benefit his company.
But without it, given the various controversies about misinformation and what aligns with Elon's own opinion, I don't know why companies line up to do business with Xai.
But Elon sees this as a clear important opportunity, and he is now striving to lead Xai to a bigger project and leverage the broader AI hype.
If that goes well, Elon could be on another big money winner. This will keep the cache flowing to X, Tesla robots, and more.
But like all Musk projects, a lot of things have to go right for this to work.
This approach seems to have worked for him up until now, but it always feels like it's barely bound together by Elon's irrational confidence.
You can see more examples of Imagine clips here.
