Is Grok 3 Really The ‘Smartest AI on Earth’?
Companies are grappling more than ever to stay competitive in the AI race.
Major technology companies are investing billions in AI development and infrastructure, including Anthropic, Google and Meta that have all released competing models, each also claiming advances in capability and safety measures.
Now xAI, the AI company founded and led by Elon Musk, has launched its latest large language model (LLM) yet: Grok 3.
Entering direct competition with OpenAI's GPT-4 in the growing market for conversational AI systems, Musk claims Grok3 is “the smartest AI on earth”, but what is behind this reasoning?
Key features of Grok3
The company has constructed a data centre in Memphis housing 200,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) designed for the complex calculations required in the AI model’s training alone.
As a result, Grok 3 boasts a suite of advanced features that position it as a formidable competitor in the AI race, including:
Increased computing power
Grok 3 was developed with 10 times more computing power than its predecessor, Grok 2.
Advanced capabilities
xAI claims Grok 3 outperforms competitors like OpenAI's GPT-4o, Google's Gemini-2 Pro and DeepSeek-V3 on various benchmarks, including mathematics (AIME), science (GPQA) and coding.
Grok 3 is “a maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct.”
It also features a voice mode and chain of thought reasoning.
Multimodal functionality
The model can analyse images and answer questions, supporting various features on Musk's social network, X.
Deep search feature
xAI introduced a new "Deep Search" service, described as a "next-generation search engine.”
Self-correcting mechanism
Musk claims Grok 3 can learn from its errors to maintain logical consistency, setting it apart from models that rely on periodic updates.
Diverse training data
The model's training dataset includes court cases and legal documents, potentially enabling it to "render extremely compelling legal verdicts.”
Accessibility
Grok 3 is available for premium X subscribers and through a separate subscription for web and app versions.
Grok3 benchmark results show advancement in mathematical and scientific capabilities
xAI reports that as well as Grok 3’s advanced features, it has demonstrated superior performance on several industry-standard evaluations, including the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) and the Graduate Physics Question Answering (GPQA) assessment, which evaluates capability in physics, biology and chemistry problem-solving.
- Voice mode: allowing verbal responses to queries
- Chain of thought reasoning: a mechanism that simulates human thought processes for complex tasks
- Massive computational infrastructure: Grok 3 was trained on a custom-built supercomputer with 200,000 GPUs
The model's training data additionally incorporates legal documentation, a departure from traditional language model training sets.
The AI model would “render extremely compelling legal verdicts," Musk reportedly stated in December, though the practical applications remain untested.
Why Grok 3’s launch marks a new chapter in xAI’s competition with OpenAI
Released on Tuesday for iOS and web platforms, Grok 3 represents a significant expansion of computing resources compared to its predecessor, according to xAI.
"Grok 3 is an order of magnitude more capable than Grok 2," says Musk.
However, Grok 3’s launch follows deeper recent tensions between Musk and OpenAI.
Musk, who departed OpenAI's board citing disagreements over its commercial direction, recently submitted an acquisition offer valued at approximately US$100bn.
Yet, OpenAI's board rejected the proposal unanimously, saying: "The AI firm is not for sale," on Friday, marking a public escalation in the ongoing dispute between the two organisations.
While Musk has made clear his intentions to return OpenAI to its open-source roots, some suggest he has somewhat less noble motives linked to his own AI company xAI.
“Grok 3 is an order of magnitude more capable than Grok 2...[It’s a] maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct,” Musk said during a live-streamed launch of the AI on Tuesday.
Grok 3 subscription model and feature set target premium market
Access to Grok 3 is currently restricted to Premium+ subscribers on X and xAI has announced a new subscription tier, SuperGrok, available through both the mobile application and Grok.com.
The platform further offers multiple operational modes, including a standard "Think" setting and a "Big Brain" configuration that allocates additional computing resources for complex queries.
"Our general approach is that we will open-source the last version when the next version is fully out,” Musk says.
“When Grok 3 is mature and stable, which is probably within a few months, then we'll open-source Grok 2.”
Speaking at The World Governments Summit in Dubai last week, Musk summarised that the new model was “scary smart.”
Explore the latest edition of Technology Magazine and be part of the conversation at our global conference series, Tech & AI LIVE.
Discover all our upcoming events and secure your tickets today.
Technology Magazine is a BizClik brand