1 month ago
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Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence firm founded by Musk three years ago, in a massive, and unconventional, deal that combines the two privately held firms into a company with an astounding $1.25 trillion reported valuation and plans for a historic IPO this year.
Musk, who is the CEO of both companies as well as publicly traded electric vehicle and robotics company Tesla, described the combination as one that will “form the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile-device communications, and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” he wrote in a blog post on SpaceX’s website.
Musk cited the potential for space-based data centers, the energy-intensive computing facilities necessary to power AI services, as one of the most important benefits of the combination, even though the concept is still unproven and largely theoretical. “Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term,” Musk wrote in the blog post.
“By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or ...
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