Elon Musk Announces Grok 3: The "Smartest AI on Earth" to Compete with OpenAI

Elon Musk Unveils Grok 3 as xAI Enters Competitive AI Market

Elon Musk has confirmed the release of Grok 3, the latest AI chatbot developed by his startup xAI.

The announcement came via his social media platform, X, where he called it the “smartest AI on Earth.”

The launch will be accompanied by a live demonstration at 12:00 PM UTC+8 on 18 February 2025.

Musk stated that he would be offline until the launch, as he and his team are working on refining the product.

He wrote,

"Will be honing product with the team all weekend, so offline until then,"

Grok 3's Training and Capabilities

Unlike traditional AI models, Grok 3 has been trained on synthetic data and features a self-correction mechanism that allows it to review its own outputs for logical accuracy.

This approach is expected to enhance its ability to reason and minimise errors.

The development of Grok 3 was accelerated by xAI’s Colossus supercomputer, which became operational eight months ago.

Equipped with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, it provided 200 million GPU hours for training—ten times more than its predecessor, Grok 2.

This significant increase in computing power has enabled the model to process vast datasets faster and more efficiently.

xAI has also refined its training methodology by integrating synthetic datasets, reinforcement learning, and self-improvement techniques.

These advancements aim to improve the chatbot’s performance and reliability.

Musk's Vision for Grok 3 Shared in Dubai

During the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this week, Musk expressed high expectations for Grok 3.

He claimed,

“I think Grok 3 is kind of scary smart. [...] Grok 3 is scary. It's like, wow, this thing comes up with solutions that you didn't even think were, like you wouldn't even anticipate.”

He highlighted its ability to learn from its mistakes by reviewing its data for logical consistency.

Musk’s Bid for OpenAI Rejected

Grok 3’s release follows news of a failed acquisition attempt by Musk and a group of investors, who reportedly offered $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

The bid aimed to reverse OpenAI’s transition from a nonprofit research organisation to a for-profit entity.

Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, stated that the intention was to "retake control" of OpenAI and restore its original mission.

However, OpenAI’s board rejected the proposal.

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, responded on X, saying,

"No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74bn if you want."

DeepSeek’s Rise Adds to AI Competition

Meanwhile, the AI industry has been shaken by the rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese startup that recently launched a low-cost, high-performance chatbot.

Its rapid adoption saw it surpass ChatGPT in downloads on the Apple App Store, challenging US dominance in AI development.

Funding and Market Position

xAI has been aggressively expanding, securing $6 billion in funding in December 2024 from investors including Nvidia, AMD, and investment funds from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

This followed an initial $6 billion funding round in May 2024.

Despite its rapid growth, xAI remains smaller than OpenAI.

However, Musk's ambitions indicate he is determined to narrow the gap as he pushes forward with developments in artificial intelligence.