NEW DELHI, India — Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has completed a $20 billion funding round, drawing backing from a group of major investors that includes Nvidia, Valor Equity Partners and the Qatar Investment Authority.
The company did not disclose how much each investor contributed or the proportion of equity versus debt in the round. Other participants included StepStone Group, Fidelity Management & Research, MGX, Baron Capital Group and an investment arm of Cisco Systems.
According to published reports, xAI had planned to raise roughly $7.5 billion in equity and up to $12.5 billion in debt through a special purpose vehicle to purchase Nvidia processors. Under that structure, the chips would be leased out over a five-year period, allowing investors to recover their capital.
xAI said the fresh financing will be used to accelerate its infrastructure expansion, speed up the development and deployment of artificial intelligence products to a global user base, and support research aligned with its stated mission of “understanding the universe.”
The company had already raised about $10 billion in equity and debt during 2025 and has been spending approximately $1 billion per month, according to reports citing sources familiar with the matter. Musk has previously confirmed that xAI is rapidly expanding its data center footprint in Memphis, targeting nearly 2 gigawatts of capacity.
A gigawatt is roughly enough electricity to power about 750,000 U.S. homes. Musk has publicly discussed ambitions to build what he has described as the world’s largest data center for AI training and has said the planned Colossus 2 facility could eventually house around 550,000 Nvidia chips, representing an investment of tens of billions of dollars.
Separately, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has taken action against X Corp over the circulation of obscene and explicit content on its platform. The ministry has directed the company to submit an action-taken report outlining immediate steps to prevent the hosting, generation and spread of such material through the misuse of AI-based services, including Grok and other xAI-related tools.
X Corp said it continues to take action against illegal content on its platform, including child sexual abuse material, and is working with local governments and law enforcement agencies to address violations. (Source: IANS)
