Tesla’s Musk predicts AI will be smarter than the smartest human next year

TESLA CEO Elon Musk on Monday (Apr 8) predicted the development of artificial intelligence (AI) that was smarter than the smartest human probably by next year, or by 2026.

In a wide-ranging interview on X spaces that suffered multiple technology glitches, Musk also told Norway wealth fund CEO Nicolai Tangen that AI was constrained by the availability of electricity and that the next version of Grok, the AI chatbot from his xAI startup, was expected to be trained by May.

“If you define AGI (artificial general intelligence) as smarter than the smartest human, I think it is probably next year, within two years,” Musk said when asked about the timeline for development of AGI.

The billionaire, who also co-founded OpenAI, said a lack of advanced chips was hampering the training of Grok’s version 2 model.

Musk founded xAI last year as a challenger to OpenAI, which he has sued for abandoning its original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. OpenAI denies the allegations.

Musk said training the Grok 2 model took about 20,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, adding that the Grok 3 model and beyond will require 100,000 Nvidia H100 chips.

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But he added that while a shortage of chips were a big constraint for the development of AI so far, electricity supply will be crucial in the next year or two.

Speaking about electric vehicles (EVs), Musk reiterated that Chinese carmakers are “the most competitive in the world” and pose “the most toughest competitive challenges” to Tesla.

He has previously warned that Chinese rivals will demolish global rivals without trade barriers.

Musk also addressed a union strike in Sweden against Tesla, saying “I think the storm has passed on that front.”

Tangen said Norway’s US$1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of Tesla’s largest shareholders, had met with the EV company’s chair last month and received an update on the situation. REUTERS