Dell Technologies onboards Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer project
Dell Technologies join forces with Nvidia to build half of the chips Musk requires to power the chatbot of the tech giant’s startup xAI.
In a post on his platform X, tech boss Elon Musk revealed his partnership with Dell Technologies and Super Micro Computer to provide server racks set to power Musk’s AI startup, xAI. According to Dell CEO Michael Dell, the company is responsible for manufacturing half the microchips for the project. To this end, Dell has partnered with Nvidia Corporation, a multinational technology company that supplies electronic chips for computer motherboard chipsets, smartphones and game consoles. The duo, together with Super Micro Computers, will build xAI’s supercomputer, which will, in turn, power the startup’s chatbot, Grok.
Musk’s xAI, a rival to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google, opened its doors last year, and its chatbot is already on version 2. Musk’s timeline for Grok 3 is fall 2025. The chatbot requires 100,000 Nvidia H100 chips to run. Grok 2 utilised 20,000 Nvidia H100 graphic processing units. The Nvidia H100 GPU chip is the most powerful GPU chip on the market and is designed for AI applications only. The chips are in short supply, and on average, one costs $25,000.
About author
DW Team
The GIP Digital Watch Observatory team, consisting of over 30 digital policy experts from around the world, excels in the fields of research and analysis on digital policy issues. The team is backed by the creative prowess of Creative Lab Diplo and the technical expertise of the Diplo tech team.