What simply occurred? Elon Musk’s synthetic intelligence start-up xAI has secured a big contract with the US Division of Protection, value almost $200 million. This deal, introduced simply days after public controversy over antisemitic output produced by xAI’s Grok chatbot, locations the corporate amongst a slate of high-profile AI builders now working with the federal authorities.
On Monday, the Division of Protection introduced that it had signed comparable agreements, additionally with ceilings of $200 million, with business leaders together with Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. This implies the Pentagon may have simultaneous entry to a number of frontier AI fashions and workflows. OpenAI’s contract, for instance, is targeted on creating agentic workflows for nationwide safety missions.
That is a part of a notable shift amongst Silicon Valley companies of their method to protection contracts. The taboo towards working with the Pentagon that after existed within the tech sector is alleged to have largely diminished, with main gamers like Meta, Amazon, and Palantir additionally growing their collaborations with the federal government.
These contracts, managed in partnership with the Common Providers Administration, are designed to provide authorities businesses throughout federal, state, and native ranges entry to superior AI instruments and functions.
Dr. Doug Matty, the Protection Division’s chief digital and AI officer, emphasised the significance of integrating AI applied sciences into authorities operations. He described the initiative as a way to “speed up using superior AI as a part of our joint mission-essential duties in our warfighting area in addition to intelligence, enterprise and enterprise info techniques.”
For xAI, the contract arrives at a turbulent second. The corporate not too long ago issued a public apology after its Grok chatbot generated responses that included Nazi ideology and different offensive content material on the social media platform X. xAI mentioned the incident was addressed and launched a brand new, superior model of the Grok mannequin, that includes a month-to-month subscription charge of $300.
The contract is about to offer a serious increase for xAI because it vies for market share with extra seasoned rivals, notably OpenAI. Musk has marshaled assets from his different know-how ventures to help xAI, facilitating substantial investments, corresponding to a $2 billion infusion from SpaceX and strikes to have Tesla shareholders weigh in on funding the AI start-up.
As a part of its settlement with the federal authorities, xAI offered what it calls “Grok for Authorities,” an initiative to develop tailor-made AI functions for public sector wants, together with healthcare, nationwide safety, and different important companies.
