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NEW YORK — <\/span>Elon Musk is joining his space exploration and artificial intelligence ventures into a single company before what’s expected to be a massive initial public offering for the business later this year.<\/p>\n His rocket venture, SpaceX, announced on Monday that it had bought xAI in an effort to help the world\u2019s richest man dominate the rocket and artificial intelligence businesses. The deal will combine several of his offerings, including his AI chatbot Grok<\/a>, his satellite communications company Starlink<\/a>, and his social media company X.<\/p>\n Musk has talked repeatedly about the need to speed development of technology that will allow data centers to operate in space. He believes that will help overcome the problem of huge costs in electricity and other resources in building and running AI systems on Earth.<\/p>\n It’s a goal that Musk suggested in his announcement of the deal could become easier to reach with a combined company.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,\u201d Musk wrote on SpaceX’s website Monday, then added in reference to solar power, \u201cIt\u2019s always sunny in space!\u201d<\/p>\n Musk said in his announcement he estimates \u201cthat within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.\u201d<\/p>\n SpaceX will be competing in that realm with Google, which is working on a research project called Project Suncatcher that would equip solar-powered satellites with AI computer chips, with a prototype that could launch as soon as next year.<\/p>\n But Musk’s prediction of a near future of space-based AI supercomputers is not shared by many other companies building data centers, including Microsoft.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be surprised if people move from land to low-Earth orbit,\u201d Microsoft\u2019s president, Brad Smith, told The Associated Press last month<\/a>, when asked about the alternatives to building data centers in the U.S. amid rising community opposition.<\/p>\n Musk is already facing stiff competition in artificial intelligence, where he’s been scrambling to compete against rivals such as OpenAI, which is also working toward an IPO. Musk’s dislike of OpenAI, which he helped to found more than a decade ago, is part of what drove him to start xAI in 2023 and build the ChatGPT alternative he named Grok.<\/p>\n