Elon Musk, the high-profile CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, is reportedly planning to launch a new artificial intelligence startup to compete against OpenAI, the AI company he co-founded. This development signals an intensification of the race to dominate the generative AI systems market, which has experienced rapid growth and attracted significant investment from major tech players.

According to recent reports, Musk has been building a team of AI researchers and engineers, acquiring thousands of Nvidia GPU processors, and engaging in discussions with investors to secure funding for his new venture. The Tesla and Twitter chief has already recruited engineers from top AI labs, including Alphabet-owned DeepMind, and sources say that excitement among potential investors is building.

The planned AI startup is said to be separate from Musk’s existing companies, but there could be potential synergies between them. Twitter content, for example, could be used to train the large language model that Musk aims to build, while Tesla could provide computing resources. In addition, Musk has hinted at the possibility of opening up Tesla’s homegrown supercomputer, Dojo, to other companies as a service, similar to Amazon’s AWS.

Musk’s decision to establish an AI startup to rival OpenAI is intriguing given his public concerns about the dangers of advanced AI systems. He has been increasingly vocal about the potential existential threats posed by AI and has criticized OpenAI for becoming less transparent and too commercially minded. Musk is particularly worried about the potential for AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 to generate misleading information and exhibit political bias.

The launch of Musk’s AI venture will add to an already crowded and competitive market, with tech giants Microsoft, Google, and Amazon vying for dominance alongside startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, Adept, and StabilityAI. As the battle for supremacy in generative AI systems continues, the industry is likely to see further innovation, investment, and growth in the coming years.