- Mindstream
- Posts
- Can xAI catch up with OpenAI?
PRESENTED BY |  |
Maryland is the singular U.S. state without any natural lakes; all its bodies of water are man-made reservoirs. So, not a good place to be a fish.
What’s in store:
Elon’s xAI raises $6B!
YouTube takes on Shazam with an update!
Around the web: HBO's "MoviePass, MovieCrash" documentary explores the rapid rise and fall of MoviePass.
TeamGPT is running a giveaway - nab an annual plan!
Read time: 6 minutes
xAI
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has secured $6 billion in funding, closing the gap with rivals OpenAI and Anthropic.
This funding aims to launch xAI’s first products, upgrade infrastructure, and speed up research and development.
The funding round values xAI at a huge $18 billion.
Key investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Major tech firms like Google, Meta, and Microsoft have invested heavily in AI to stay competitive, reflecting the high costs of running these systems.
Here are the tidbits:
xAI secures $6 billion, reaching a total value of $18 billion.
Major investments come from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
OpenAI has a significantly higher valuation due to backing from Microsoft.
The power play of all power plays
OpenAI, famous for its ChatGPT, has seen its valuation soar to $80 billion, thanks to Microsoft’s $13 billion investment.
Anthropic, backed by Amazon, has raised $8 billion, valuing it at $15 billion.
Musk, who also leads Tesla and SpaceX, co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left due to disagreements over its direction.
He has since sued OpenAI for prioritising profits over the public good and released xAI’s chatbot code to promote open-sourcing.
Despite recent progress, Musk admits xAI has a lot of catching up to do with OpenAI and Google.
Another day, another billion-dollar play by Elon Musk.
Is xAI's $6 billion funding enough to catch up with the competition? |
Vote for live results and see results + opinions from yesterday at the bottom of the email.
AI GIVEAWAY!
Enter the raffle and you could bag an annual MAX plan!
Team-GPT is the leading tool for AI collaboration adopted by over 2000 high-performing businesses worldwide.
Share chats, store them in folders, turn each chat into a document, and connect any AI model (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude).
Join our community of 35,000+ users, including professionals from Charles Schwab, Johns Hopkins Uni, Yale, and Shift4.
On This Day
May 29th 1953 - Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal become the first climbers confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Tool of the Week
Talefy
An immersive storytelling platform powered by advanced AI, Talefy offers a vast array of interactive narratives where choices shape unique story endings. With genres like Romance, Thriller, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi, it caters to diverse tastes. Users can influence story outcomes through their choices.
YOUTUBE
The Android YouTube Music app is rolling out a feature that helps you identify songs by humming, whistling, singing, or playing a recording.
It works like a blend of Shazam and a friend who knows every tune.
Tap the search button in the upper right corner of the app, and you'll see a new waveform icon next to the microphone.
Tap it, and the app will start listening to identify the song.
It's impressively quick, often recognising recordings almost instantly, making it a strong Shazam alternative.
Here are the key features:
Identify songs by humming, whistling, singing, or playing recordings.
Accessible via a new waveform icon in the search menu.
Faster and more accurate than similar features in other apps.
The ultimate song detector
During tests, the app accurately identified most songs hummed, whistled, or sung, though there were some amusing errors:
It mistook a hum for Tom Waits' "Fumblin' With the Blues."
It misidentified "Dead" by They Might Be Giants.
It confused "Bat Out of Hell" by Meat Loaf with a song by Finnish hair metal band Reckless Love.
Despite the occasional miss, the feature works efficiently and is faster than Google's similar function.
This humming search capability has also been spotted on YouTube Music for iOS, though it's not widely available yet.
Can it pick up my heavy metal screams though?
READ MORE BOOKS
Here’s why we prefer Shortform to learn more from nonfiction books:
Detailed 1-pagers and chapter-by-chapter breakdowns
Smart insights and analyses
Connections and counter-arguments to ideas from other books
Interactive exercises
Audio versions and Printable PDFs
For Mindstream readers - the first 500 people to sign up for the annual subscription get 3 months on us!
Mindstream Picks
South Korea has launched its first independent space agency, the Korea AeroSpace Administration, which will focus on national aerospace policies, talent development and many more.
Stock futures rose Tuesday morning as investors anticipated inflation data expected at week's end, aiming to refine their market outlook.
FIFA is rumoured to be collaborating with 2K Games on a new video game, potentially titled "FIFA 2K25," set to release before the 2026 World Cup.
The SEC has approved several Ethereum ETFs, a significant development for the crypto market involving major financial entities like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale.
Don’t Miss - "MoviePass, MovieCrash," a new HBO documentary directed by Muta’Ali, talks about the dramatic rise and fall of MoviePass, initially lauded as a game-changer for the cinema industry with its cost-effective subscription model. The film reveals internal warnings about unsustainable growth ignored by executives, leading to its 2020 bankruptcy.
AI Art
Our Image of the Day
Artwork submitted by Mindstream reader Ryan: “The Burj Khalifa but as a LEGO”
Daily Image Prompt
Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, comic book style
We get a lot of submissions, but we do look at every single one! So please don’t hesitate to send us your art.
Yesterday’s Poll
“Which Apple AI feature excites you most from the rumours?”
Smart Recap for summarising notifications! - 43% ✅
AI-generated Voice Memo transcripts! - 43% ✅
AI emojis! - 14%
Your Views:
“When will I get real time language translation on my phone?” - stullerjim
“Apple needs to quickly integrate AI into its products starting with Pages” - patrick
Submit your opinions in our daily poll for the chance to be featured!
 | That's your Midweek Mindstream all set! We've got some exciting things in the pipeline, stay tuned! ❤️ We need your feedback to make our newsletter better. 📣 Refer our newsletter to your friends and make us feel warm and fuzzy. 🚀 Advertise in our newsletter to reach 130,000+ founders, engineers, and content creators. |
Hey You! Would You Recommend Us? |