Elon Musk picks future AI leader amid feud with OpenAI and Apple, cites rival tech giant's ‘data advantage'
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Google's billion-dollar AI bet
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Musk's race to catch up
Feud with Apple and OpenAI still brewing
The battle for dominance in artificial intelligence is heating up, and Elon Musk has just made a surprising admission. Despite pouring massive resources into his AI venture xAI , the billionaire believes another Silicon Valley giant has the upper hand — at least for now.In a post on X, Musk said Google, through its DeepMind division, currently enjoys the 'biggest compute and data advantage' outside of real-world AI applications. This, he argued, gives the search engine titan the 'highest probability' of leading the AI field in the immediate future.'Outside of real-world AI, Google has the biggest compute (and data) advantage for now, so currently has the highest probability of being the leader,' Musk wrote. 'That may change in a few years.'Musk's comments come as Google invests heavily to strengthen its AI dominance . The company is pouring an estimated $75 billion this year into expanding data centers and computational infrastructure, while its DeepMind team — widely considered one of the world's most advanced in AI research — continues to refine large language models.Google's AI arm is also building on over a decade of research experience, with its Gemini chatbot and other tools positioned to challenge rivals like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Musk's own Grok.For his part, Musk is betting on rapid scaling. xAI is building 'Colossus,' a massive supercluster in Memphis, and plans to deploy hundreds of thousands of GPUs to close the gap with tech's biggest players. He is also leveraging the broader Musk ecosystem — Tesla's AI research, SpaceX's satellite infrastructure, and social platform X — to accelerate model training and product rollouts.Grok, xAI's flagship chatbot, and Aurora, its image generator, have both received frequent updates and are climbing app store rankings. Yet Musk acknowledges that Google's vast datasets and computational muscle give it a present-day advantage.Musk's recognition of Google's position comes against the backdrop of his escalating disputes with Apple and OpenAI.Earlier Musk had threatened 'immediate legal action' against Apple, accusing its App Store of favoring ChatGPT over other AI apps, including Grok. He claimed Apple's editorial choices made it 'impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.'This criticism followed Apple's partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its 'Apple Intelligence' platform, powering Siri on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, has since become one of its harshest critics, accusing it of abandoning its nonprofit mission.
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