By Abubakar Yunusa
The artificial intelligence (AI) race took another leap forward on Monday as xAI, the AI company founded by Elon Musk, unveiled Grok 3, its latest chatbot model.
Prior to the launch, Musk had boasted that Grok 3 would be the “smartest AI on Earth”.
During a live demonstration on Monday, xAI showcased Grok’s major advancements in reasoning, efficiency, and creativity.
Musk kicked off the presentation with an overview of xAI’s mission.
“We’re very excited to present Grok3, which is, we think, an order of magnitude more capable than Grok2 in a very short period of time,” he said.
“The mission of xAI and Grok is to understand the universe, we want to answer the biggest questions: Where are the aliens? What’s the meaning of life? How does the universe end?
“To do that, we must rigorously pursue truth.”
The latest release features a new series of models, including a GPT-4o-like pre-trained model, two specialised reasoning models, and an AI agent called Deep Search.
Grok 3 is expected to run on xAI’s Colossus supercomputer, a system reportedly built in just eight months with over 100,000 Nvidia GPU hours dedicated to training its AI models.
According to Musk’s team, Grok 3 outperforms its predecessor by an “order of magnitude” and introduces new capabilities like a transparent thought process, similar to DeepSeek R1 and ChatGPT 0.3 Mini.
However, Musk confirmed that xAI will obscure parts of Grok 3 reasoning to prevent competitors from copying its methodology.
The company also launched a dedicated Grok website, Grok.com, and announced that the chatbot update will be available for Premium Plus subscribers on X.
Although Musk did not comment on an Android version, the Grok 3 app is already available for pre-registration on the Google Play Store.
xAI executives also revealed the intense effort behind the project, including the rapid construction of a massive GPU infrastructure.
“We didn’t have much time because we wanted to launch Grok3 as quickly as possible,” they said.
The company reportedly deployed its first 100,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) in just 122 days, then doubled the H100 GPU cluster within 92 days to enhance computing capacity.
Beyond raw processing power, xAI emphasised that Grok 3 will receive daily updates to ensure it remains ahead of competitors, adding that a new subscription model, “Super Grok,” will offer early access to advanced features, including voice interaction for a more intuitive experience.
Grok 3’s unveiling comes on the heels of intense competition in the AI space.
Just a month ago, Chinese startup DeepSeek disrupted the industry with its low-cost, high-performance chatbot, and challenged US dominance in AI innovation.
DeepSeek also quickly overtook ChatGPT in app store downloads in January.
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